


The Rule of the Guardians

by cinderellaphant



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Characters, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chapters not in order, F/M, Identity Reveal, Implied DJwifi, Memory Loss, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat, amnesiac!Marinette, but my dumb brain saw a chance and I couldn't leave it alone, don't be fooled by the first chapter, or a happy ending, stop at chapter 5 if you want my original planned ending, this wasn't supposed to end with a reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29170092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderellaphant/pseuds/cinderellaphant
Summary: “Marinette!” Adrien called, waving and walking over to stand next to her.Marinette looked up from her sketchbook, brushing her hair out of her blue eyes. “Oh, hello.”Something was off about her tone, but he forged through. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in forever.You look great.”Marinette blinked at Adrien as if she’d never seen him before in her life. “I’m sorry, who are you?”After graduation and the defeat of Hawkmoth, Adrien gives up his miraculous and leaves Paris. Two years later, he returns to find Ladybug and reconnect with his friends - and runs into his old high school classmate, Marinette. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to remember him.In fact, she doesn’t remember anything.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 79
Kudos: 318





	1. Chapter 1

Adrien Agreste, the twenty-year-old former model-slash-superhero, was finally back in Paris. 

To be specific, he was wandering around Place de Vosges Square, watching kids on the merry-go-round and couples holding hands, wondering if he should have come back sooner. It was almost overwhelming, the things he had done here and not quite forgotten, as both Adrien and Chat Noir. The photoshoots. So many photoshoots. Hanging out with Nino. Hiding with Marinette in the fountain while fans thundered past and his bodyguard drove by. Moonwalking to annoy Ladybug and then being kidnapped by pigeons. Pretending to be captured by Cardboard Girl so Mr. Damocles could “save” them. Marinette, kissing him on the cheek at her picnic on Heroes’ Day.

They were all happier times, happier memories, but his heart still ached. 

Adrien shook his head to get himself out of his thoughts and glanced across the street, where he could see the roof of Francois-Dupont peeking through the treetops. He smiled to himself, remembering all the times he had snuck back into school as Chat Noir after an akuma attack. Absentmindedly, Adrien reached for his right hand and traced the bare skin of his ring finger where his miraculous used to lay. 

The miraculous he’d given back to Ladybug after Hawkmoth’s defeat, right after high school graduation.

It was the right decision, he reminded himself. He had needed to get out of Paris, to escape the scorn of the city and the Agreste name so he could breathe. He needed to learn how to grieve his father. A father who had never been there for him in the first place. A father who wasn’t even dead, just in prison. A father who turned out to be the very supervillain Adrien had fought every other day for almost five years.

He’d given up or almost given up his miraculous before, but this time was different. Hawkmoth was defeated. Ladybug didn’t need him anymore, as much as he needed her. He missed his Lady like she was one of his limbs, but he wasn’t in a good place to be a hero anymore. So he gave her his miraculous and fled. 

Yes, it was the right decision. He just wished he could see his Bug again, and tell her why he’d done it. She deserved to know why her Cat had left her to deal with the aftermath of Hawkmoth’s defeat on her own, and hadn’t shown his face again.

But no one had seen Ladybug in almost two years. The last sighting, according to the Ladyblog, was a month after the defeat of Hawkmoth, a month after he’d up and left. He didn’t know who she was, or if she was even still in Paris.

But he wanted to find her, all the same. Even if he didn’t deserve it, after abandoning her.

Yep, Adrien Agreste was back in Paris, ready to try for the life he had been denied, between an overprotective father and moonlighting as a renegade superhero. A normal life, with friends, university, a job, an apartment (no way was he going _anywhere_ near the Agreste Mansion _ever_ again). He’d call Nino, who didn’t even know he was in Paris yet, and catch up with the friends that were still in town, and go from there. Maybe he’d even find Ladybug. It was worth a shot, right?

As Adrien turned to leave the park, he noticed a familiar figure sitting on a bench near the gate, bent over something in her lap. Her legs were crossed underneath a pink skirt, and her long dark hair spilled over her shoulders like ink. _That’s right,_ he remembered suddenly. _The Dupain-Cheng bakery is also next to the park._ He hadn’t planned on letting anyone know he was in town until tomorrow; he’d wanted to spend the day wandering and remembering on his own, but he couldn’t leave without saying hi to an old school friend.

“Marinette!” Adrien called, waving and walking over to stand next to her.

Marinette looked up from her sketchbook, brushing her hair out of her blue eyes. “Oh, hello.”

Something was off about her tone, but he forged through. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in forever.” He took the chance to look her over. He hadn’t realized how much he missed her. She looked older than when he’d last seen her at graduation, her hair much longer and worn loose, but it was definitely Marinette. Same bangs. Same freckles. Same big, bluebell eyes. Same pink clothes. Did she make those herself? “You look great.”

Marinette blinked at Adrien as if she’d never seen him before in her life. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Adrien’s heart sank. Maybe it wasn’t Marinette? She didn’t remember him, or recognize him, or… anything. “Oh,” he said dumbly, trying to hide his disappointment as his face tinged pink in embarrassment. “I thought I recognized you from high school.” He turned to leave. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Wait!” Maybe-Not-Marinette lunged forward out of her seat and grabbed his sleeve, startling him. “We knew each other in high school?” she asked.

He turned to face her. There was still no hint of recognition in her gaze, but there was an earnestness that was 100% Marinette Dupain-Cheng. 

“I thought so,” he said. “But you don’t remember me, so-”

“Will you tell me about it?”

Adrien blinked, startled. 

Maybe-Not-Marinette released his sleeve self-consciously. “Sorry.” She took a deep breath, then looked him right in the eyes. “I am Marinette. We probably did go to school together. I don’t remember because…” she reached up to toy with her necklace. “I lost my memory a while back. I don’t remember anything from high school.”

Adrien gaped at her. That was awful. “Oh, Marinette,” he said, stepping closer, then hesitating. “Are you… I mean… God, I have no idea what to say. That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Marinette said, sweeping her long hair over her shoulder. “It’s not too bad, anymore. Not like it was in the beginning. I just wish I could remember, you know?”

Adrien shook his head. How had he not known this? Why didn’t Nino tell him? Sure, he’d practically gone off the grid, but this was the kind of news he would have wanted to know about. “How did it happen? Why can’t you remember anything?”

Marinette sat back down on the bench and Adrien sat next to her. “I hit my head one day, and I woke up in my room, not knowing where I was or who I was.” 

She played with the hem of her skirt absentmindedly, and Adrien wondered if she’d made it, or if she even did fashion anymore. How much of her was still Marinette?

“It’s not as bad as you’re thinking,” Marinette insisted, seeing the look on his face. “They tell me my name is Marinette, I want to be a fashion designer, and I have a reputation for being a walking disaster.”

“You’re not a walking disaster,” Adrien protested. “Just… a little clumsy sometimes.” Though even as he said it, his gut twisted. Even this was different. This was not the stuttering, shy girl he knew.

Marinette laughed. “Even you know it! My klutziness is legendary, apparently.”

Adrien was glad to see her laughing, even though he could still see the sadness in her eyes. “You really don’t remember high school?”

She shook her head. “Or anything from before. It’s a complete blank.” she paused. “Will you tell me about it? High school, I mean. What was I like? What were you like? How did we meet?” she paused and squinted at him. “What’s your name? I’m realizing now that I should probably make sure you’re not a creeper and that you actually knew me.”

Adrien laughed. “I’m Adrien.” He wasn’t sure if he was ready to tell her his last name and give away that he was the son of Paris’ infamous supervillain.

Marinette froze. “Adrien Agreste?”

Oh, well. He should have known it was a lost cause anyway.

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. “I’m sure you’ve heard all that stuff about my dad, and-”

“No, no,” she waved him off frantically. “It’s just… Alya and Nino told me all about you. Yes, I’ve heard about your dad, but, no one I know blames you at all. And I believe them. I swear.” She smiled at him shyly. “I hear we were good friends in school.”

Adrien smiled at her gratefully. “We were.”

She peered at him closer. “You know, I think I recognize you now, from the pictures and stuff. You look a lot different than in our class photos.”

“What has Alya and Nino told you about me?” Adrien was genuinely curious to know.

Marinette blushed a little and shook her head at him. “Nope. You first. I’m the one with no memory, here.”

Adrien chuckled a little. “Fair enough.”

“Do you remember Ladybug and Chat Noir?” At some point during their conversation, they’d relocated to a small cafe so they would be more comfortable, and Adrien was now sitting across from Marinette, nursing a coffee while he recounted the tale of the gum and the umbrella.

Marinette shook her head, stirring her drink. “No, not at all. People talk about them all the time though.”

“Have you seen any videos? There are a ton of them.”

“Oh, yeah. Pretty sure Alya’s shown me the entire Ladyblog by now.” Marinette rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe how dedicated she was.”

“Can you blame her? Ladybug’s awesome.” Adrien smiled. “It was like the coolest thing ever to be saved by Ladybug or Chat Noir. Alya used to chase after supervillains just so she could get some video of the superheroes. It scared us all half to death.”

“That sounds like her.” Marinette paused, then added, “Where do you think they went?”

“Where who went?”

“Ladybug and Chat Noir. Where did they go? I mean, Chat Noir hasn’t been seen since immediately after they defeated Hawkmoth, and Ladybug only stuck around for a few weeks after that.”

Adrien remained silent. He didn’t know where Ladybug was. He needed to find her.

“Do they still have their miraculous?” Marinette continued. “Will they come back if there’s another supervillain?”

He needed to make it up to his lady, somehow. 

“And why didn’t they disappear at the same time? Do they know each other’s identities?”

No. No, they didn’t. Adrien’s hand brushed the skin where his ring used to rest again. What if it was his fault? Did Ladybug disappear because of him?

Trying to feign ignorance, Adrien shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know, unless they come back.” He racked his brain for a subject change. “So, your turn. What did Alya and Nino tell you about me?” he took a sip of his coffee.

Marinette coughed, her face pink again. “Um, well,” she took a deep breath. “They told me I used to have the biggest crush on you.”

Adrien choked on his drink. “What?”

Marinette stifled a giggle and handed him a napkin. “I take it you had no idea.”

“You did?” Adrien asked, dabbing at his face.

Marinette shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t remember. But Alya loves recounting the embarrassing things I did trying to talk to you.”

“Huh.” Adrien said, sitting back in his seat. He wasn’t sure how this new information was going to fit in his brain.

“You really didn’t know?” Marinette asked. “The way everyone tells it, I was super obvious.”

“I was a pretty oblivious teenager,” Adrien admitted.

Now that he thought about it, it did make sense. The way she always seemed vaguely nervous around him, the photos of him she had up on her walls, the time she had confessed her love to him when he was pretending to be a wax statue and then said it was a joke. If only he had realized…

Then what? Marinette was an awesome girl, but he had been too infatuated with Ladybug to ask her out if he had known. And now? Now she didn’t even remember him. As far as she could remember, they had just met that day. She didn’t know him, and he wasn’t sure he still knew her.

Whatever could have been didn’t exist anymore.

“What was I like?” Marinette asked softly, her fingers toying with her necklace, a small golden key on a slender chain.

Adrien could have kicked himself. Of course that was what she wanted to know. And here he was, rambling about his first day of school and Ladybug and Chat Noir and all of their classmates like the oblivious fool he still was. It was just that talking with her was so easy. Despite his doubts, she was still so… Marinette. It felt like for the first time in years, he was able to relax and be himself again. Laugh with his friends again.

It didn’t help that Marinette was very pretty. She’d definitely grown up nicely.

Adrien cleared his throat to distract himself from those thoughts. “Well, we’ve already established that you were clumsy.”

Marinette stuck her tongue out at him. He grinned at her.

“You also were late a lot. Like, all the time. And you came up with the funniest excuses for it. It was honestly hilarious.”

Marinette was laughing now, but trying to hide it.

“And you forgot things. You didn’t go anywhere without forgetting something. Or running out on us because you forgot to do something.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I was a spaz. I get enough of this from Alya and Nino. Anything else?”

“Well…” He pretended to think hard, then laughed when Marinette scowled at him. “Okay, okay. You were always doing things to help people. And you were brilliant at it, honestly. You were always coming up with these plans to help people out.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” Adrien closed his eyes, trying to remember. “Once, Max got his robot Markov taken away from him, and you wanted to see the principal to get him back, but our teacher would let you, so you just kept talking until she sent you to the principal for misbehavior.”

Marinette snorted and covered her mouth. “No way.”

“You did! Luka told me about this one time you needed to get into the TV Station with Kitty Section, and you came up with a plan to distract the guards so you and Luka could sneak in.” Marinette was laughing again, so he kept going. “Oh, and you helped hide me from my bodyguard and all these crazy fans after an ad I did came out. We ran around Paris trying to hide, and eventually you found a motorcycle helmet for me and you wrapped a towel around your head and put goggles on and we hid in a movie theater…” Now he was laughing too hard to continue, and Marinette was bent over herself in laughter. 

After a while, they managed to compose themselves, and Marinette wiped her eyes as she said. “Wow. No one ever told me any of that.”

“Really?”

“I mean, they’ve told me some things. I heard that I designed an album cover and made sunglasses for Jagged Stone, and apparently I introduced Marc and Nathanael to each other.”

“Yeah, I still have the Jagged Stone album you signed for me. Did you know that you almost played Ladybug in Clara Nightingale’s music video?” 

“Yeah, and you almost played Chat Noir. It’s weird though, since I don’t remember Ladybug or Chat Noir at all.” she hummed in silence for a moment. “What were akuma attacks like?”

Adrien looked up, a little confused at the sudden change in topic.

Her face flushed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that, I forgot that Hawkmoth…” she swallowed. “Forget I said anything.”

“No, it’s okay,” Adrien assured her. “It’s just weird that you don’t remember them at all.” he tilted his head, giving her question some thought. Akuma attacks had been different for him, since he’d been one of the superheroes to go fight them. “They were scary,” he started. “It’s just weird, when you get an akuma alert and see a supervillain with magic powers tearing up the city, and sometimes hurting people, and knowing that it could be someone you know, or sometimes it was even your fault. You’d see people get turned to ice cream, or frozen into statues, or put under weird spells. But we just ran to hide, and trusted that Ladybug would fix everything in the end.”

“Were you…” Marinette cleared her throat. “Were you ever akumatized?”

“No. Probably because you know, my father was Hawkmoth.” It had been two years, yet it was still weird to say it so casually.

Marinette looked away, as if scared of her next question. “Was I?”

The tremble in her voice made him want to reach for her hand, but that would probably be weird. “No, you were never akumatized either.” He would have remembered having to fight an evil Marinette. “The rest of our class was, though. You were too optimistic to let Hawkmoth take advantage of you.”

Marinette let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good. There are already enough weird things in my past for me to keep track of.”

She was pointedly not asking anything about Hawkmoth specifically, and Adrien would forever be grateful. Maybe one day he’d want to talk about it. 

But not today.

“I mean, akuma attacks were a big part of everyone’s life,” Adrien continued. “It was almost normal to have something interrupted by a supervillain.”

“That’s so sad.” Marinette said.

“Yeah, I guess. Your birthday party, for example. Your grandma was akumatized and showed up trying to turn you into coal until Chat Noir got there and rescued you.” He remembered that day vividly.

“That’s right, I heard about that.” Marinette reached for a bag at her feet and pulled it into her lap, rummaging through it. “Was that the party you gave me, um… this?” she held up a familiar yellow and blue lucky charm.

Adrien reached out and took the charm in his hand, choking up a little. “You still have this? Even though you don’t remember?”

Pink tinged Marinette’s cheeks, but she held his gaze. “Alya told me you gave it to me, and that it was important. I carry it with me everywhere.”

“That’s… wow.” Adrien reached into his pocket and pulled out his own pink and green lucky charm. “I carry this one with me everywhere, too.”

“You have one too?”

“Marinette, _you_ gave me this one.”

Her eyes widened, and she took it from him, running her fingers gently over the beads. “I did?”

“Yeah. We were playing Ultimate Mecha Strike III, and you were absolutely crushing it.” Marinette blushed, and he continued. “Seriously, you were leaving me in the dust. And you gave me that lucky charm, and told me it was the secret to your success.”

“So you made me this one for my birthday.” Marinette whispered, almost to herself. “No wonder I…” she didn’t finish, but looked up at him again, eyes sparkling. “Did the lucky charm work?”

“Well, I didn’t get a chance to test it that day, since a supervillain attacked.”

Marinette blinked. “Wow, plot twist.”

“Yeah. I mean, not really.” Adrein shrugged. “It happened a lot. Oh, did anyone tell you about the time you went on a date with a supervillain?”

Marinette spluttered. “I did _what_ now?”

“Yeah, you helped Ladybug and Chat Noir by distracting the Evillustrator for them.”

Marinette blinked at him. “...Nathanael? I- what?”

Adrien laughed, but it was short lived, burdened with the knowledge that this was probably going to be what the rest of Marinette’s life was like. If he hadn’t been Chat Noir, Marinette would have never known that about herself.

Maybe it was selfish, but he was grateful to be able to focus on someone else’s problems, even if it was just for an afternoon.

Marinette sighed. “I wished I remembered everything.”

Funny, sometimes Adrien wished that he didn’t. Which was easier?

“Well, I’m here to remind you,” Adrien promised.

“So you’re staying in Paris?” Marinette asked hopefully.

“That’s the plan.” Not that Adrien had much of a plan beyond that.

“I didn’t hear that you were coming back.”

Adrien fidgeted a bit. “Yeah… I actually didn’t tell anyone.”

“Why not?” Marinette tilted her head curiously.

Adrien shrugged. He didn’t know, honestly. He mostly came back for Ladybug. But the way things were going, it was doubtful he was going to find her. No one had seen her in years, and he had no way of letting her know that Chat Noir was back. 

He hadn’t even told her he was going.

Marinette shook her head at him. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Adrien. I didn’t know half of that stuff about me.” she stood up and smoothed her skirt. Adrien followed the motion with his eyes. “You should tell Alya and Nino that you’re back. We could all hang out, like…”

“Like old times.” Adrien finished, standing up as well. He picked up her bag and handed it to her. “I’m glad I ran into you, Marinette. I missed you. And I know it’s probably weird for you, since you don’t remember me, but-” 

“It’s not weird,” Marinette insisted. “It was really nice talking to you. Like talking to a friend, even though I don’t remember.” she smiled. “I hope you’re here to stay. I’d love to get to know you… again.”

They walked together to the sidewalk, then Adrien felt a small hand on his arm. “Do you…” Marinette trailed off. “Um, that is…”

“Yes?” There was obviously something bothering her, but Adrien had no idea what it could possibly be.

“Do you know where…” Marinette pulled her hand back and reached again for where the charm hung over her collarbone. “Actually, you know what? Never mind. It was really nice to see you.”

“You too.” Adrien responded, deciding to let it go for now. “But if you ever want to talk… I’m here. I know you don’t really know me anymore, but… I was going through some stuff too. Still am. Very different stuff, but I’m here if you ever need to talk.” 

“Thank you, Adrien. I might just take you up on that.” Marinette gave him a quick smile, then waved goodbye and left.

Adrien watched until she turned the corner, then pulled out his phone. He had some serious Ladyblog research to do. He was on a mission, after all. Ladybug wasn’t going to find herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated! Let me know what you think.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine’s Day!

\--- 6 months earlier ---

Adrien dropped his bag and collapsed face down into the unfamiliar bed, face smushed in the stiff blanket. It was the third hotel in four days, and he was exhausted, even though it was barely two in the afternoon. Groaning, he rolled over and pulled out his laptop, opening it and balancing it precariously on his lap. 

The tab for the Ladyblog was still open, as always, even though he already knew what he was going to see. Alya’s posts had gotten less and less frequent after the defeat of Hawkmoth until they basically stopped altogether. The last post was from a few months ago, on Heroes’ Day, and was entirely a memoriam to the two heroes and how they had inspired Paris.

It was nice to know he had a legacy besides being the son of a supervillain.

Adrien leaned his head against the wall and sighed. What had his father been thinking? He couldn’t imagine his mother would have wanted his father to terrorize Paris just to bring her back - but the longer he thought about it, the less certain he was. She had died from using a damaged miraculous, so maybe he didn’t know her as well as he thought he had. She’d been lying to Adrien, too. Despite how ridiculous and out of character it seemed, he couldn’t get the image out of his head: his mother and his father, together, making a pact that if one of them died, the other wouldn’t stop until they found a way to bring them back.

He didn’t like that image.

His phone rang, and he fished it out of his pocket to glance at it. It was his real estate agent - or whatever the equivalent was in China. He let it go to voicemail. He’d call her back later. Finding a more permanent place to stay than a hotel room was not high on his list of priorities right now. Scrolling through his messages, he saw he also had a few from the CEO and the new designer of the Gabriel brand. Technically, the company was owned by Adrien Agreste - at least the business side - but it was being run almost entirely without him right now. It had to be something important if they were trying to reach him.

He ignored those messages, too. For now.

His phone rang once again, and he was prepared to just turn it off completely when he saw who, exactly, was video-calling him. He picked up. “Hey.”

 _“Hey, dude. What’s up?”_ Nino Lahiffe’s familiar face filled the screen. _“Is this a good time?”_

__

“Yeah, you’re good. How are you?” Despite Adrien’s melancholy mood, the sight of his old friend lifted his spirits. He missed Nino.

_“Same old. Exams are coming up, so lots of studying.”_

__

__

“Bummer. Good luck with those.”

_“Thanks, dude. Oh! Alya and I actually moved in together a few weeks ago.”_

__

__

“That’s great!” Adrien said, trying to summon the appropriate amount of enthusiasm despite his exhaustion. 

_“Yeah, it’s been awesome. I don’t know why you’re always complaining about living with a girl.”_

__

__

“Because it was Chloe,” Adrien told him, though he immediately felt guilty. Chloe had taken him in for _months_ , letting him crash in her apartment, and she never asked one thing from him in return. She didn’t deserve to be trash-talked, no matter how prissy she could be. “She’s picky when it comes to how her household is run, but she was really nice to me and everyone else.”

 _“Hold up. ‘Was’? Where are you?”_ Nino craned his neck, as if trying to see Adrien’s surroundings, even though that was not how a camera worked.

“China.” Adrien hauled himself off the bed and walked towards the hotel window.

_“Dude! I thought you were in New York with Chloe!”_

__

__

“I left a few days ago,” Adrien told him, turning the camera so Nino could see the view of the city. “I’m in Shanghai now.”

_“Wow. That’s so cool. How long do you think you’re going to stay?”_

__

__

Adrien knew his friend wanted him to come back to Paris, but he was glad he wasn’t pressuring him. “I don’t know,” he told Nino, turning the camera back towards him and sitting down in his desk chair. “However long I need to.”

Nino hummed. He’d offered to let Adrien stay with him multiple times, but Adrien had turned him down every time. He hadn’t been ready for Paris yet.

But what about now? He was doing much better than he’d been a year and a half ago. He was about to start living on his own, taking care of himself. He’d come to terms with who his father really was, and was mostly okay that a lot of his questions would remain unanswered. But was he really ready for Paris?

Sometimes he imagined what it would be like to stay away forever. To start a new life in London, or New York, or Shanghai, or wherever else he decided to go. He had the means. He could go anywhere, do anything he wanted, and never have to relive the memories again.

But his friends were in Paris. His father’s fashion company was in Paris. Ladybug might still be in Paris. As much as he sometimes pretended otherwise, there were still things tying him to his home city, good things. And some small part of him knew that he would never be able to really move on until he went back and confronted those memories, at least for a little bit.

How could he move on with his life if he just ran away and didn’t even try?

Nino had started talking about some of the other things that had gone on with their other classmates, and Adrien tried his best to listen, he really did. But his gaze slipped over to where his laptop was still open to the Ladyblog on his bed. A red suit and fierce gaze, staring at him from the videos he had memorized long ago, but still rewatched every day.

Was she still out there? Was she waiting for him to come back?

Or had she forgotten about him already?

_“...and Max designed this epic new video game and he’s already got some people interested in helping him publish it…”_

__

__

A year and a half since he’d last seen her, yet red ribbons and blue eyes still featured in his dreams most nights. How could he live with himself, knowing he abandoned her like that?

_“...shouldn’t be too hard for him anyway, he’s got this insane robotics thing going on with his university professors…”_

__

__

What would Plagg think he should do? Oh, Plagg. He had barely said so much as a goodbye to his long-time friend, the one person who knew him inside and out, before tossing him away. After so many years of having a constant companion, the loneliness was almost crushing. But would Paris fix that?

_“...said she was coming back, but she went to India instead. She just can’t sit still or something…”_

__

__

Nino had often said the same thing about him. That he was restless. He joked that Adrien was finally going through the rebellious phase he never had. Nino always made it sound like it was a normal thing, like a part of growing up, like finding yourself. As much as Nino wanted him back in Paris, he always made Adrien feel like it was okay to be spending so much time on himself. To disappear for a bit.

_“...been thinking about taking a semester off, but we’re not sure what for yet…”_

__

__

He had been running away from things that couldn’t hurt him anymore, but maybe all he was really doing was running away from people who cared about him. 

For the past eighteen months he’d craved solitude. He’d been trying to take his time, wanting to be alone. Trying to process, to feel like himself again. But what if someday he became lonely? Could he go back to Paris? Would his life still be waiting there for him? Could he still have a shot at being the person he wished he could have been, if his life hadn’t been turned upside down?

_“What do you think?”_

__

__

“I think you’d like traveling a lot,” Adrien said honestly. “But you don’t have to decide right away. You’ll have lots of time for that.” Guilt twisted in his gut as he thought about how he’d barely been listening. He was such a bad friend, he couldn’t even pay attention to one of the two people he still spoke to.

Maybe being away wasn’t the right thing for him anymore.

 _“Yeah, you’re right.”_ Nino said offhandedly. _“It’s not like we have to decide right now.”_

Adrien hesitated, then asked timidly, “If I wanted to come back to Paris…”

Nino visibly perked up. _“Yeah? You know you’d have a place to stay.”_

__

__

Adrien smiled, the knot in his gut loosening a bit. “Thanks, Nino. I’ll think about it.”

That was all he could promise right then. But maybe someday, when he was ready...

\---Present day---

It took three days after talking to Marinette for Adrien to finally work up the nerve to call Nino. Despite Marinette’s assurance that they missed him and would be elated to see him again, he couldn’t help the nagging worry that their old high school friendship was just that - a high school friendship, and that they had all moved on with their lives without him. And he would have no one to blame but himself. He leaned back against the wall of his room in the Grand Paris Hotel and put his phone to his ear apprehensively, trying to remind himself that he’d seen Marinette, and it had gone really well. Though he wasn’t sure if she counted, considering the situation. 

Nino picked up after two rings. _“Hey dude, what’s up?”_

__

__

“Hey, Nino,” Adrien greeted. “Just checking in.” His lips twisted, imagining Nino’s reaction when he found out that Adrien was in town. “It’s been a while, how’ve you been?”

_“Good, good. It’s been forever, we need to call more often. How’s Shanghai?”_

__

__

“I wouldn’t know.” Adrien bit back a smile, sure that Nino would be able to hear it in his voice and he’d give himself away.

_“Dude, you get around. Where are you now?”_

__

__

“Paris, actually,” Adrien deadpanned.

There was a stunned pause, then Nino cursed. Adrien couldn’t tell if it was a mad or happy swear. Knowing his friend, probably both. _“You’re here? What the hell? That’s awesome! Why didn’t you tell me?_

__

__

Adrien shrugged, though he knew Nino couldn’t see it. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

 _"Bro, you can’t just drop something like that on me! You should have told me this ages ago!”_ Nino groaned, and there was a thump.

“Are you okay?” Adrien asked, wishing he could see Nino’s face.

_“No! I haven’t seen my best friend in like, two years, and now you’re back in Paris and you didn’t even tell me you were coming!”_

__

__

Despite the fact that Nino was as close to yelling as he ever got, Adrien couldn’t help but get a little misty eyed at hearing Nino call him his best friend. He didn’t deserve it, after being away for so long, and in that instant, he regretted pushing him away.

 _“Okay Agreste, you get your butt over here in an hour, got it? Alya should be home by then, Marinette will probably tag along, and we’ll all catch up.”_ Nino blew out a sharp huff of breath. _“When I tell the girls you’re back, you are so in for it.”_

__

__

Adrien chuckled, glad he’d left out the fact that he’d been in Paris for a few days already. “You should just not tell Alya I’m coming. I’ll surprise her.”

Nino laughed. _“That’s a funny idea, bro, but I prefer my friends with their heads attached.”_

__

__

Adrien rubbed his neck. “On second thought, let’s give her some advance warning.”

_“Yeah. Oh man, I can’t believe you’re really back.”_

__

__

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Why had he waited so long to call? He missed Nino so much. He should have known he didn’t have anything to worry about.

_“We’re all good, man. Geez, I can’t wait to see you.”_

__

__

“Me, neither.”

_“An hour, okay? I’ll send you the address. Don’t be late.”_

__

__

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Adrien promised. “The old squad, huh?” he mused, a small smile playing over his lips. “That sounds nice.”

Nino paused, then said quietly, _“Yeah. The old squad.”_

__

* * *

__

Adrien had barely rung the bell of the small apartment when the front door was flung open and Adrien got his first look at his best friend since high school graduation.

“Dude!” Nino greeted, then flung his arms around Adrien.

Adrien happily reciprocated the hug. “Good to see you, man.” Nino was taller than Adrien remembered, with broader shoulders and stubble on his jaw, though he still wore a cap and headphones, which for some reason relieved Adrien more than he could put into words. In this, at least, he still knew his friend.

Nino pulled back and ushered Adrien inside the apartment, closing the door behind him. “Alya will be back soon with the food. Is Chinese okay? It’s from one of our favorite restaurants.”

“Chinese sounds awesome.” Adrien took the chance to look around at what seemed to be the living room. It was small, but cozy. Pictures on the walls and worn furniture that somehow made the space seem comfortable, rather than cramped. 

Nino weaved around the couch, heading towards a doorway on the other side of the room. “That’s good. I was worried you’d be tired of Chinese food by now.”

“I could never get tired of Chinese food,” Adrien assured him, following his friend to the kitchen. It was surprisingly clean for college students, though there was still a decent amount of clutter scattered on the countertops and on the fridge.

“I know, right?” Nino started to clear away some of the mess, stacking dishes in the sink and shoving mail into a drawer. “Anyway, the girls are so excited to see you.”

Adrien couldn’t wait to see them. “So Marinette’s coming?” he asked.

Nino paused in his tidying before turning back towards Adrien, looking apprehensive all of a sudden. “Yeah, Marinette’s coming,” he said slowly. “Actually, there’s something you need to know.” He peeked out the kitchen window, probably checking for the girls, before turning back to Adrien and leaning against the table. “Marinette suffered some brain damage since you’ve last seen her.”

Adrien had the sudden, inexplicable urge to laugh. Nino was using the Tone. The one he’d gotten very, very familiar with a couple years ago. The one that adults used when they were trying to deliver bad news in the gentlest way possible. The one he’d heard from Nathalie for years, then from his father, then some police officers, then from the doctors, then from his aunt. He never would have guessed he’d hear it from Nino. 

Adrien raised an eyebrow at Nino. “I know Marinette lost her memory.”

Nino straightened. “You do?”

Adrien nodded. “We ran into each other a few days ago.”

“A few days… you were here a few days ago?” Nino placed his palms against the counter. “Why didn’t you call me earlier? Shoot, Marinette _knew_ you were here and she didn’t tell us?”

Adrien crossed his arms, amusement quickly giving way to annoyance. “You’re one to talk. Marinette lost her memory two years ago and no one told me!”

Nino fell silent and looked away, not meeting Adrien’s eyes as he fidgeted through his answer. “Dude, I - you’re right. It just… it happened so soon after you left, and we figured you had enough to worry about, and then later... it just seemed weird to bring it up later, I don’t know. That’s not a good excuse, I know. I should have told you.”

“Marinette is my friend too,” Adrien said. “I would have wanted to know.”

Nino took off his cap and ran a hand over his hair. “I know, dude.”

“And now you’ve had… what? Two years with her? While I had no idea she didn’t know me? As far as she can remember, we met for the first time this week!” Apparently, it bothered Adrien a little more than he had realized.

Nino sighed. “I’m really sorry. I should have told you.”

“Yeah,” Adrien said. 

“But it’s not like we kept it from you to be mean,” Nino continued. “It was really hard for all of us at first, especially Marinette. I mean, we’ve known each other since elementary school, and she barely remembered me. She doesn’t remember most people at all. And Alya, she cried when Marinette saw her and didn’t recognize her. Her best friend for years and Marinette acted like she was a complete stranger. And even now… it’s heartbreaking, to watch Marinette try to remember…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. I knew you were going through your own stuff. I guess I didn’t think you really wanted to hear our drama on top of it. Especially since you didn’t really ever seem that interested in what was going on with us.”

Adrien rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I guess that makes sense,” he admitted. “But this… this wasn’t just drama. It’s important. It sounds like you guys went through a lot, and I wasn’t there. I didn’t even know it was happening.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Nino said. “I really am sorry.” He hesitated. “Are we… are we good?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Adrien said after a second. “If anyone else hits their head and suffers memory loss…”

“You’ll be the first person I tell,” Nino promised, putting his cap back on before placing his hand over his chest. “Cross my heart.”

They laughed just as the front door opened, releasing with it a flurry of movement and sound. Female voices and the rustle of clothes and bags and keys. The sound of people coming home.

Seconds later, a familiar auburn-haired young woman charged into the kitchen, tossing a bag on the table and spreading her arms wide open. “Adrien! It’s so nice to see you!” 

Adrien grinned. “Alya!” he greeted as she walked over and enveloped him in a hug. “How’ve you been?” He looked her up and down. She, too, looked so much older than when he’d last seen her.

Alya gave him the same cursory once-over, shaking her head. “Dang, Sunshine, when did you grow up?” she asked, voicing Adrien’s thoughts exactly. 

Behind Alya, Marinette came in, loaded down with bags and shaking her head. “Can’t even help me bring the bags in, she was so excited to see you,” Marinette rolled her eyes, but she gave Adrien a little wave as Nino walked over to relieve her of the takeout bags.

“Hi, Marinette.” Adrien walked over to give her a hug too, then realized halfway there that she might not be comfortable with that anymore and maybe their short acquaintance hadn’t really reached the hugging stage - but he’d already committed himself. Too late to back out now.

Luckily, Marinette hugged him without hesitation. “Hey, there,” she greeted cheerfully.

“Did you tell him?” Alya asked Nino in a stage-whisper.

“He already knew,” Nino said wryly. “Apparently he and Marinette were hanging out a few days ago without telling us.”

Alya gasped and whirled on the smaller girl. “Marinette! You knew Adrien was back and you didn’t say anything?”

Marinette just shrugged, but there was a little twinkle in her eye, and when Alya and Nino weren’t looking, she shot Adrien a small wink. He smiled back, grateful that Marinette had been thoughtful enough to give him a few days and not say anything until he was ready.

“Seriously, girl?” he heard Alya hiss as they started to unpack the takeout, and Adrien winced as he went to help them, hoping that she wouldn’t give Marinette too hard of a time for keeping it to herself.

Three hours later, Marinette’s transgression was forgotten. Adrien was warm and full, buzzing a little from his drink and smiling as he lolled about on the couch with some of his best friends in the whole world, wondering what on earth he’d been worried about.

“I bet we could do an informal high school reunion,” Alya hummed from the armchair. Nino was sprawled out on the floor in front of her, leaning against her legs. “Lila’s project is ready to launch in a few weeks, so she’ll be coming back from Achu, at least for a little while.”

“What project is she working on?” Adrien asked curiously. What he really wanted to know was if it was a real project, or if she was spinning yet another one of her lies. Lila Rossi was one of the few things he did not miss about high school.

“Some climate change thing she’s been working on with some world leaders her parents introduced her to,” Marinette explained from where she was curled up on the couch next to Adrien. For some reason Marinette’s answer bothered him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

But anyway, that was definitely not a real project. “Can’t she do that from Paris?” Adrien asked skeptically.

“She probably could,” Nino admitted. “But she said she wanted to explore the world a little more.”

“I think she got freaked out when Hawkmoth was defeated,” Alya confided. “Especially since Ladybug disappeared, she got really upset.”

That made sense. Gabriel Agreste had been Lila’s boss, after all. Adrien tried to remember if he’d seen Lila after Hawkmoth had been revealed, but that whole time had been a blur, from the arrest, to the trial, to his aunt Amelie coming and taking him to live with her in London. 

“Yeah, I guess that explains why she’s so jumpy whenever she’s in Paris,” Nino decided. “But if she’s really coming back, I bet we can convince Chloe to come back for a weekend, and it would be easy for Juleka to take the train back in from London…”

Marinette, seeing Adrien’s confused face, leaned over to him. “Lila came back for about a week a few months ago. She spent the entire time working on some project, then flew right back to Italy”, she whispered while Alya and Nino tried to figure out the best time to get the rest of their old classmates together. “But I’m not sure why Ladybug leaving would upset her.”

“Lila said that she and Ladybug were friends in high school,” Adrien told her quietly. He supposed it was yet another thing she’d forgotten. Marinette nodded slowly, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to file this information away.

With a jolt, Adrien suddenly realized what had been bothering him before. Marinette had lost all of her memories of high school - which meant she also lost any memories of Lila, and surely Lila had been smart enough to not repeat whatever lie had made Marinette turn against her in the first place. 

Nino laughed at something Marinette said, but Adrien wasn’t listening anymore, too distracted by the pang of sudden sadness. This one connection he used to have with Marinette was now gone. Another version of her reality that she no longer knew about, and no one was around to tell her. 

He was interrupted from his musings when Alya let out a shriek as Marinette threw a pillow at her, accidentally nailing Nino in the face.

“Dude!” Nino spluttered.

“Oops! Sorry, Nino.” Picking up another pillow, Marinette stood up and advanced on Alya, who scrambled off of the chair to get away. “You take that back, Alya!”

“I’m just kidding, girl! I’d never do that to you.” Alya yelped as she was whacked with the pillow. 

“You’d better not,” Marinette threatened.

Nino dodged as Alya armed herself with her own pillow, then crawled over to the couch. “They could do this all day,” he told Adrien as he hauled himself up to sit in Marinette’s vacated seat.

“Maybe I will tell him!” Alya announced. “Hey Adrien, did you know that-”

Marinette lunged for Alya and covered her mouth with one hand, perching on the seat of the armchair. “It doesn’t matter,” she said loftily as Alya tried in vain to get away. “I already told him.”

Alya reached around to tickle Marinette’s sides. Marinette yelped and squirmed away, both girls laughing. “Oh yeah? Did you tell him that you’ve always wanted a hamster?”

“You can’t give away my secrets just because I don’t remember them!”

“That wasn’t even a secret! Everyone knows you want a hamster!”

Nino sighed and reached for the leftover Chinese food. “I think there are some fortune cookies in here,” he said, rummaging through the bag. “You want one?”

Adrien took the cookie Nino offered him, but didn’t open it, instead watching the girls as Alya assured Marinette that she was just kidding and would never really do that to her. Marinette laughed, one hand adjusting her necklace, which had gotten twisted in their pillow fight. It was obvious that the girls were quite close, despite what Nino had said before about Marinette not remembering Alya at all. 

Nino picked up two of the fortune cookies, tossing them to the girls, who were squished together on the armchair. Marinette caught them and handed one to Alya. 

Adrien finally took his cookie out of the wrapper, unfolding the paper inside. He stared at it for longer than he needed to, then folded it carefully and tucked it inside his wallet, where he’d be able to find it again.

If Alya and Nino could still be so close with Marinette despite her condition, then maybe he could still be close to them too. Maybe it didn’t matter that he’d been away so long, or that Marinette didn’t remember him anymore. 

It wouldn’t be the same. But he would be okay with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it took a lot longer for me to update than I thought it was going to. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated! Let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place the day after the last chapter.

Adrien paced back and forth in front of a familiar building, feeling a strange sense of deja-vu as he stared up at the sign for the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie. He’d come over several times as a teenager and superhero both, and though that was years ago, the place still looked very much the same.

He’s early. Way too early. Alya and Nino weren’t going to be here for video games for another half an hour, but if Adrien had to spend another minute in his hotel room, pacing and trying to remember whatever he possibly could about Ladybug, his brain just might explode. There was only so many times he could read the year-old speculation on where Ladybug could have gone before he had to call it quits.

Nothing was helping. No matter how hard he tried, he had no idea who Ladybug could possibly be, or where she could have gone. He hated to say it, but it was looking likely that he would never…

No. He wasn’t giving up yet. He may not be a superhero anymore, but there was no way he wasn’t going to see Ladybug again.

If he couldn’t find her, he’d make sure she could find him.

Deciding that going up and announcing his presence, however early he was, was better than loitering out front, Adrien forwent the storefront in favor of the back stairs that led to the Dupain-Cheng residence above the bakery. He rang the doorbell, shifting from foot to foot.

The door opened, revealing Marinette in an oversized sweater and her hair twisted back, blinking up at him as if wondering what he was doing there.

“Sorry I’m super early,” Adrien blurted, then added, belatedly, “Hi.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Marinette greeted, smiling graciously as she stepped back and held the door open for him. “I wasn’t busy.” 

Adrien followed her up the stairs and into her familiar pink room. To his surprise, it looked almost exactly like it did two years ago. “Wow, your room looks just like I remember it.”

“Yeah, I haven’t changed it much.” Marinette answered, plopping down into a desk chair and reaching for the monitor. “I don’t have Ultimate Mecha Strike set up yet…”

“That’s okay,” Adrien said, wondering if he should have stayed outside after all. Marinette obviously wasn’t ready for him, if the sheet thrown over part of her desk was any indication. And he wasn’t sure if Marinette was comfortable with him in her room without Alya and Nino there. “I can just hang out downstairs if you want to, um…” he gestured to the concealed desk, trying to give her an opening to kick him out if she wanted. “Clean that up.”

Marinette glanced over, as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Oh! Right. Um, that’s okay. I thought you might be Alya or Nino.” She rolled her chair over, pulling off the sheet. Underneath seemed to be a collection of random papers and trinkets, scattered across the desk with no rhyme or reason. Adrien couldn’t see why she would want to hide any of it from Alya and Nino, much less why she’d want to hide it from them and not him.

Adrien walked over to help her fold the sheet, needing something to do so he didn’t feel awkward. Grabbing two of the corners, he said, “If you don’t mind me asking, what is all that?”

Marinette shook out her side of the sheet, then brought her hands together. Adrien copied her. “Just some of my old stuff.”

Adrien couldn’t help but peer over Marinette’s shoulder as they brought their two sides together. “Just some old stuff” was an understatement. Adrien saw notebooks, letters, a Jagged Stone guitar pick, pictures, jewelry, and all sorts of other odds and ends. Even the quaint, old fashioned alarm clock Alya had gotten Marinette for graduation as a joke, since Marinette had always had a really hard time waking up in time for school. A silver keychain in the middle of the pile caught his eye, but Marinette noticed him looking and, leaving him to finish folding up the bedsheet, started sweeping the mess into a drawer, blocking his view of her desk with her body.

Embarrassed at being caught looking, Adrien folded the sheet into as neat of a square as he could manage. Flicking it to smooth it out, the action sent the open notebooks’ pages flipping. A certain piece of paper caught his eye, and before he could think better of it he blurted, “That’s my hat.”

Marinette turned to look at him. “What?”

“That hat.” Adrien flipped through one of the sketchbooks until he found the page with the one sketch on it. The derby hat, complete with embroidery and a feather, Marinette’s name sewn onto the brim. “This is the one you designed for me for my father’s contest.”

“I...yeah. That’s right.”

“I still have it. Somewhere.”

“Cool.” Marinette picked up the sketchbook and ran a finger over the design. 

“It had a real feather originally, but you had to replace it because I’m allergic to feathers.”

Marinette didn’t say anything, and Adrien wondered why he was still talking. She probably heard all this from Alya and Nino already. 

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Adrien said, fingering a plain black umbrella. “What is all this stuff?”

“They’re things I found after I woke up,” Marinette told him, slinking back into her desk chair. “Well, not exactly. Things that I think used to be important to me. I know it’s really stupid, but it feels so weird to me to have all this stuff that obviously had some significance but to not know where it came from.”

“That’s not stupid,” Adrien assured her.

“I guess I just keep hoping that if I know where all my stuff came from, I’ll know what kind of a person I am.” Marinette sighed and picked a necklace up off the desk. Adrien recognized it as the one she’d been wearing the last few times he’d seen her. The one with the key. She ran it over her fingers, avoiding eye contact. 

Adrien had no idea what to say, unsure if Marinette wanted to talk about it more. “So you… you keep all of this stuff….”

Marinette’s eyes widened. “I promise I’m not a… a hoarder, or anything like that.”

“No, of course not,” Adrien assured her quickly. “That’s not what I meant. It’s okay to want to know more about yourself.”

Marinette seemed to relax, and she reached up to clasp the necklace chain around her neck, the small golden key coming to rest at her collarbone. “Yeah. Thanks.” She peered up at him through her bangs, chewing her lip thoughtfully. After a moment she blurted out, “If I tell you something do you promise to not think I’m crazy?”

“I could never think you were crazy,” Adrien promised. Marinette gave him a skeptical look. “I’m serious,” he insisted. “Try me.” He held her gaze. Marinette was one of the smartest people he knew, and she had good instincts. Whatever she was about to tell him, he would believe her.

“Okay,” Marinette started. She plucked a necklace off of the desk and held it up to show it to him. It was a small pink stone, shaped like half of a yin-yang symbol, hanging off of a black cord. “Have you ever seen this before?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Neither has anyone else,” Marinette told him. “Not even my parents have ever seen me wearing it. They think I must have made it myself, but it doesn’t really match other jewelry I’ve made. There are no sketches of it. No concept art. Nothing. I’ve asked everyone I can think of. No one gave it to me. I can’t find a store that sells or has ever sold necklaces like it.” She set the necklace carefully down on the desk. “So where did it come from?”

Huh. That wasn’t exactly what Adrien had been expecting. “Where did you find it?” he asked.

“I was wearing it when I woke up. _Under_ my shirt,” Marinette told him meaningfully.

“So… what?” Realizing that could come across as skeptical and that he had promised to take her seriously, he was quick to add, “What are you getting at?”

“I’m saying that there are some things about me that no one can explain, no matter who I ask.”

“You’re not going to be able to figure out where every single one of your possessions came from,” Adrien said gently.

“That was just an example,” Marinette told him curtly. “There are other things.”

“Like what?” Adrien asked.

“People hearing me talk to someone on the phone, but no one has any idea who I was talking to. I mentioned this one friend a lot, but no one knows who they are. There are a ton of times where my friends thought I couldn’t hang out because I was helping my parents in the bakery, but my parents say I told them I was hanging out with my friends.” Marinette threw her hands up in the air. “Where on earth was I really?”

Adrien frowned. Most of him wanted to explain it away, tell her that it was unreasonable to expect everyone to remember where she was supposed to be on a specific day years ago. But another part of him, a small corner in the back of his brain, twitched. He could relate to that, in some small way. His father never knowing where he really was. Letting his friends assume things about him, just so that he wouldn’t have to tell them the truth: that he was actually a superhero.

Adrien’s eyes suddenly snapped to Marinette’s.

She let out a sigh of relief. “You get it, now,” she said.

Well, maybe. He couldn’t be certain. He had to be certain. Because if Marinette was Ladybug, then that meant… that had to mean…

He had to be certain.

“I think I understand,” Adrien said, carefully weighing his options. It wasn’t like he could just ask her. She wouldn’t even know, one way or the other. “I used to sneak out a lot. I would play piano music from my phone so my bodyguard thought I was practicing, then climb out the window. If I lost my memory, then I would probably never know that I wasn’t the perfect son.” He snorted a little as he said it.

Marinette relaxed even more, eyes brightening. “So… you think I was maybe sneaking out somewhere, like that? But where would I be sneaking to?” She shook her head. “My parents are pretty lenient. Why would I need to go behind their backs?”

_If you were saving Paris every other day,_ Adrien thought. Ladybug had disappeared. Marinette had lost her memory. Adrien’s eyes flickered to Marinette’s ears, but they were bare of any jewelry. He tried to remember if she’d worn earrings back in high school. He couldn’t remember. If she lost her memory and couldn’t remember what they were, she might have taken them off, right? Was there a miracle box hidden somewhere in this room, protected by a Guardian who didn’t know she was supposed to be protecting it?

Adrien’s eyes widened in dismay. Or had she given up being the Guardian? That would have erased her memories, right?

Marinette seemed to wilt again, at the sudden horror that was surely written all over his face. “I knew it. I knew you’d think I’m crazy. And now I’m going to have to talk to my parents, and they’re going to be all worried about me, and they’ll try to get me to talk to more therapists, and-”

“When did you hit your head, again?” Adrien asked, cutting her off. 

Marinette seemed surprised at the sudden question, but told him the date.

Adrien did the math in his head, gradually relaxing. That was before Ladybug was last sighted, he was pretty sure. Yes, yes it was. Ladybug had probably been seen multiple times since then. They couldn’t be the same person. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said, suddenly feeling very, very jovial. 

He’d been overreacting. Just like that one time Chloe had been accused of being Ladybug. He’d literally seen Marinette and Ladybug together, several times. She couldn’t possibly be Ladybug.

He almost hated to admit to himself the intense relief that coursed through his body. Ladybug hadn’t given up Guardianship. She hadn’t forgotten who she was. She was probably still out there, hiding as her civilian self, waiting until she was needed again. But that also meant Adrien was no closer to finding her.

Marinette’s memory loss was a terrible tragedy. But thank goodness it was just a coincidence.

“Sorry,” Adrien told Marinette. “I just realized how soon after I went to London you lost your memory.”

“Yeah,” Marinette said hesitantly. She didn’t seem convinced. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have dumped this all on you-”

“No!” Adrien interrupted. He didn’t want her to regret telling him this. He was glad she was confiding in him. Maybe if he did the same, she’d be more comfortable with talking to him. “You know, when… when Hawkmoth and Mayura were revealed, I was devastated. Father was my only family, and Nathalie was the next closest thing. I felt… so betrayed. And the entire time I was in London, and New York, I just couldn’t stop replaying every moment of my life back, wondering how on earth I’d missed all the clues. Second-guessing every moment I spent with my parents, and beating myself up over not seeing it sooner.”

Marinette’s hand twitched, as if she wanted to put it over his, but she remained still. Listening.

“Every single memory with my father and Nathalie… it feels like a lie, now. But eventually I had to realize… I might never get all the answers. I can speculate, and beat myself up about it, but I might have to move on without knowing.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that,” Marinette said gently. 

Adrien mentally shook himself. “Yeah, but that’s not why I told you that.” Why had he told her that, again? “My point is that I think I can kind of understand what you’re trying to do. It’s so frustrating, to know something was wrong for so long.”

“Yes,” Marinette breathed, her eyes shining. “Yes, that’s exactly it.”

Adrien suddenly found himself caught in her blue eyes. Blue, like Ladybug’s. But she wasn’t Ladybug. All of a sudden that one fact that had caused him such relief only moments before now rang hollow in his chest. How great would it be if they had turned out to be the same person? How selfish was it, to wish that they were? Did he want to find Ladybug that badly?

Yes. Yes, he did.

“You know what the frustrating thing is?” Marinette said, suddenly animated in a way that she hadn’t been before. “It’s that no one else really wants to talk about this. My friends would all rather be in the present or whatever. They mean well, but they don’t think it’s good for me to try to hash out things that happened years ago.”

Adrien privately thought that they might have a point, but he didn’t say that. He’d had his own phase of trying to hash out things that happened years ago.

“But no one seems concerned about this! When something’s off, it just gets brushed off as misremembering or my clumsiness or something. I mean, was I really so forgetful that I could leave my house half an hour before my friends say I arrived at school some days?”

“Wait, what?” Adrien was pretty sure that it didn’t take Marinette half an hour to walk half a block to school.

“Exactly!”

“And no one else is concerned about it?” Adrien double-checked.

Marinette sighed. “No. I think they get kind of uncomfortable when I ask about that kind of stuff. They’d rather I not focus on the past so much.”

“Why not?”

“I saw a whole bunch of people after I hit my head, but after a while it kind of became clear that my memory wasn’t going to come back. After that, the doctors said that I should try not to focus too much on what I can’t remember, but…” Marinette leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I don’t want this to be my life. I can’t just move on with a huge blank spot in my past. Random snippets of conflicting second-hand memories. If we’re the sum of our experiences, then what am I?”

Adrien’s face softened, and this time he really did reach out to take her hand. Two years ago, he’d been in his own crisis, and he’d pushed everyone away. He didn’t even give his friends the chance to be there for him. It warmed him more than words could express that Marinette trusts him enough to tell him all this, to say without words that she needs someone to listen to her. How could he ever think she was crazy? 

“I want to help,” he said, squeezing her hand.

Marinette blinked. “You - what?” she asked.

“I remember things. I’m sure I’ll remember some things that other people don’t. And even if I can’t do much… you shouldn’t have to do this alone.”

“Are you - I mean, it’s not - I don’t even know what I’m doing,” Marinette stammered out, retracting her hand.

Teenage Adrien would have slumped away in disappointment, sure that she didn’t want his help and that it was stupid to offer. Adult Adrien raised an eyebrow at Marinette and shrugged. “That’s okay. I can be someone to talk to. It would be helpful to talk through this stuff, right?”

“Right,” Marinette said hesitantly. “Okay.”

Adrien smiled at her. “Okay. So, the rest of this stuff…”

“Maybe you can look at it later and see if there’s anything you recognize,” Marinette offered, rolling over and sweeping the rest of it into the drawers, shutting them with a final-sounding snap. “But right now, I want to show you this.” Marinette stood up and beckoned for him to stand next to her. Reaching up, Marinette pulled down what looked like a rolling window shade in the middle of her room. 

Ducking around it to stand next to her, Adrien saw instead that it was a map. A very detailed one of Paris, with pink and green and purple symbols all over it.

“It was like this when I woke up,” Marinette said, tracing it with one slender finger before coming to rest on a hastily scribbled question mark pointing to Francois-Dupont High School. “I have no idea what any of this means.”

Adrien stepped closer, scanning the map. His eyes came to rest on a green star at the corner of two streets. Right where the one of the buildings he and Ladybug used to meet for patrol was. “Wow.”

“I know, right?” Marinette smirked. “It just needs red yarn and it’s a conspiracy theory map. But there’s no kind of indication of what it was for.” Her finger continued, moving left until it rested on a pink splotch at the Eiffel tower, then continuing to trace the cluster of purple dots at the Place de Vosges Square.

Adrien looked, but he couldn’t find any sort of correlation. Some of the symbols were placed in easily-recognizable spots, like the Louvre or the Pont des Arts Bridge. Others were in random places along the streets, places he only knew from patrolling the city so often. “Well, nothing jumps out at me right away. But there’s got to be some reason you marked this map up so much, right?”

Marinette hummed, as if unsurprised. “No notes, no key, no words at all,” Marinette said.

“It’s almost like you were trying to make it hard to understand.”

“You know what else is funny?” Marinette asked. “My diary is missing.”

Adrien looked over at her. “Your diary?”

“Yeah. Apparently I used to write in it religiously. But I can’t find it. It isn’t anywhere in the house.” Marinette groaned and plopped down onto the floor. “I was hiding something from everyone so well that I managed to hide it from myself.”

Adrien continued to look at the map. “You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.” A thought occurred to him, and he asked, “Have you tried, like, memory exercises? Aren’t there things you can do to try to trigger forgotten memories?”

Marinette sighed. “We tried that already,” she told him. “I went to a few psychotherapists, and we did all sorts of things. But nothing worked. My coordination is fine, after a few hours I remembered everything from before my teenage years, but those five years…” she shook her head. “We gave up after a while. Nothing was working.”

Adrien’s brow creased. She wasn’t Ladybug… but her memory loss sounded remarkably like something caused by magic. Granted, he didn’t know as much as Ladybug did about that kind of stuff, but—

Wait. If Marinette’s memory loss _was_ magic related… who would have been able to do it but Ladybug? Adrien’s brain started spinning with the possibilities. Ladybug had always been super protective of her identity. What if Marinette had found out something she wasn’t supposed to, so Ladybug erased her memory and stole her diary?

Okay, that was a little ridiculous. But Adrien couldn’t help but ask. “So you just, what? Woke up one day and you couldn’t remember anything?”

Marinette looked over at him, confused. “I hit my head,” she said slowly. “Didn’t I tell you that already?”

“Yeah, but…” Adrien fumbled for words. “How can you - I mean, how do you know?” he asked, wincing.

Marinette raised an eyebrow at him. “There was a loud bang from my room and I woke up with a monster of a headache.”

“Oh.” Adrien was officially dumb. He really needed to stop jumping to conclusions. Coincidences did exist, after all. Was he so hung up on Ladybug that he would believe anything if it meant he could find her?

Adrien and Marinette inspected the map in silence for a few seconds before Marinette spoke up again. “What if we find out it’s something awful?” she asked, voice suddenly quiet. Adrien turned away from the map, and could see just from the look on her face that this was not the first time this had occurred to her. “I mean, I was hiding this from you, too. What if we find out that I was… I don’t know, dealing drugs? Or got pregnant. Or-”

“I feel like we’d know if you had ever been pregnant.” Adrien interrupted her train of thought before she could spiral down too far, moving to sit down next to her. “And I can’t imagine you dealing drugs. Taking down an illegal ring of drug dealers, maybe.”

“Hey, it’s possible,” Marinette said, fiddling with her necklace.

Adrien reached up and pulled her hands away. “I think that whatever we find, good or bad, it won’t matter, because it doesn’t erase all the good things you did. You were a good person. Whatever you were hiding doesn’t change that.” He made sure she was looking at him before adding, “Everyone has secrets. You just don’t remember yours.”

“You’re right,” Marinette said, nodding slowly. “You know, having someone to talk to about all this is really nice.”

Adrien smiled. “Glad I could help.”

Before either of them could say anything else, the doorbell rang and Marinette shot to her feet, tugging on the map to make it retract out of sight. “Alya and Nino! Please don’t tell them anything about this,” she begged. “They always get so concerned if they think I’m stressing about my memory loss, and I don’t want to make them worry.”

“Of course,” Adrien assured her. “It’ll stay between us.”

Marinette visibly relaxed. “Thank you.”

* * *

An hour later, Adrien plopped down on the chaise next to Alya after losing yet another round to Marinette. “You’re up, Nino,” he said.

Nino switched places, sitting down in the desk chair by Marinette. “You’re going down, dude.”

“Is that denial I hear?” Marinette said innocently, putting a hand to her ear. “No one’s taking down this video game master.”

“You’d think that she’d have forgotten to play,” Alya stage-whispered to Adrien. “Considering she forgot everything else.”

If Adrien was being honest, Marinette didn’t seem quite as good as Adrien remembered. Whether that was because he’d gotten better since they’d played together, or whether Marinette really had lost some of her skills, there was no way to know. Nevertheless, Adrien had actually beaten her a couple of times, though Marinette won the majority of their games.

“I’ve been playing Ultimate Mecha Strike since _way_ before high school,” Marinette said loftily, starting the round. “And video games are a great way to bond with parents you don’t remember super well.”

“Alas,” Alya said dramatically, putting a hand to her forehead. “The video game gods have chosen Marinette as their host. There is no going back.”

“You don’t remember your parents?” Adrien asked, concerned. She had forgotten so much already… but her family, too?

“I do,” Marinette assured him. “But it felt like I hadn’t seen them in years. And knowing them as a thirteen year old is very different from knowing them as an adult.”

Adrien guessed that made sense. His relationship with his father had changed a lot over the years too, though he figured a lot on _that_ front had to do with losing his mother.

Speaking of which…

Adrien watched Marinette and Nino play, eyeing Alya out of the corner of his eye and shifting in his seat slightly. If anyone were to have leads on Ladybug-

“Okay, what is it?” Alya asked tiredly. At Adrien’s sheepish look, she smiled. “Gotta be more subtle than that if you want to ask me something.”

“You caught me,” Adrien admitted quietly. “I was going to ask about the Ladyblog. Or, I guess about Ladybug, more specifically.” He kept his voice down, not wanting to distract Marinette or Nino.

“Yeah?” Alya asked. “I don’t really do that anymore. No Ladybug or Chat Noir to post about, right?”

“What if they come back?”

“Oh, I’d start it back up again in a heartbeat,” Alya said immediately. “I never really shut it down. It’s just on an indefinite hiatus right now, I guess.”

“Do you know if Ladybug’s coming back?”

Alya snorted quietly. “I wish.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why so interested? You want to find her?”

“Uh…” Adrien fumbled, looking for some sort of excuse that sounded semi-plausible. When Alya’s expression didn’t change, he decided to take Chloe’s advice: when in doubt, use the father. “I, uh, I wanted to talk to her about… you know, everything that happened when I left. I feel super bad that my dad basically attacked her and Chat Noir every day.”

Alya’s face instantly softened in understanding, and Adrien felt the tiniest twinge of guilt for the small lie. Well, technically not a lie. Just an omission. “I see.”

“Yeah.” Adrien reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Last time we talked I kind of got the impression that she thought I was mad at her for putting my dad in jail and I took off and left for London without setting that straight.”

Alya pulled out her phone and unlocked it. “Well, I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” she said, scrolling through the Ladyblog. “But this is the last known sighting.” She showed her phone to Adrien and he looked at it dutifully, even though he already knew the post by heart. A few candids, some out of focus, but taken from close enough that there was no doubt it was Ladybug. Plus the fact that she was standing on a roof. There was even a short video, though it was impossible to tell what Ladybug was doing until she threw her yoyo and zipped away.

“It was an anonymous submission,” Alya told Adrien, pulling her phone back. 

“Are those unusual?” Adrien asked curiously, though he had no idea what he wanted to hear. It was probably a shot in the dark. Whatever Alya knew was already posted on her blog, right?

“Nah. I used to get them all the time. Though they were normally through private messaging, not email.”

“And this was…” Adrien leaned forward and squinted to check the date. “...before Marinette lost her memory?” he asked, hoping he sounded casual.

Luckily, Alya seemed too lost in thought to notice if anything was amiss. “Mm. I think so… No wait, it was after. Yeah, after. Because we had been planning to go to that Jagged Stone concert the same day I got this submission, but Marinette didn’t remember me. Or that, you know, she knew Jagged Stone personally.”

Okay, so Marinette definitely couldn’t be Ladybug. Worth a try, though. “How do you know when Ladybug was sighted, if the pictures were submitted anonymously?” he asked.

“The metadata. It says when the picture was taken.”

“Oh, right.” Adrien glanced up to see that Marinette and Nino were starting another round of UMS. They’d be distracted a little longer. Not that he was really keeping his Ladybug search from them, but he wasn't going to go and _advertise_ it.

“You know,” Alya said, navigating her phone. “I doubt this will help you, but…” she spent a few minutes on her phone, before huffing and getting her laptop out of her bag and searching through it. Finally she let out a little, “There it is,” and tapped a few keys. “There. I just sent you something.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the full video of one of the Ladyblog posts. You know, the one where the mayor held a ceremony in Ladybug’s honor? Well, for Ladybug and Chat Noir?”

He did. He’d watched it live with Nadja Chamack from his aunt’s house in London, had barely blinked while Ladybug took the stage and graciously accepted the praise from the mayor. As soon as she’d left, Adrien had turned it off and hadn’t watched it again for two years, even when it was posted on the Ladyblog. Watching Ladybug in action for one thing, but watching Ladybug up there, doing the part of the job he knew she liked the least, by herself… shouldering yet another responsibility. He couldn’t help but think that he should have been there. Not because he wanted attention, or praise, but because that was what they did. They were Ladybug and Chat Noir. They took on the world together.

At least they used to.

Adrien cleared his throat and aimed for nonchalant. “Yeah, I know the one.”

“Yeah, Ladybug’s last official public appearance. Not that she did a lot of them to begin with.” Alya ran a hand through her hair and started packing away her laptop. “I live-streamed the entire thing, but I edited it down later out of respect for Marinette.” She leaned in a little and said quietly. “Let me know if you find Ladybug, okay?” Her eyes glinted. “I would _love_ to know…”

Adrien nodded distractedly. _Out of respect for Marinette?_ Adrien wanted to ask what Alya meant by that, but was interrupted when Nino tossed his controller back on the desk and threw his hands up in the hair. “That’s it. Why are you still so good?” Nino jabbed a finger at Marinette, but his grin gave him away. “You were supposed to lose your coordination or some shit when you hit your head!”

Marinette just laughed, pumping her arms and circling her hips in an adorable victory dance.

Adrien mouthed “thank you” to Alya, who winked before saying to Nino, “What did I tell you? She’s almost unbeatable.”

“Nuh uh.” Nino crossed his arms. “We’re doing a team up. Us against Marinette. She needs to go down!”

Marinette grinned as she tossed a couple more joypads to Alya and Nino. “If you insist.”

* * *

Adrien thoroughly enjoyed his remaining time with his friends. What was not to love? The sun was shining through the windows and lighting up the room pleasantly, he’d established a connection with Marinette, and he was spending quality time with his friends as easily as if he’d never left.

Yet unbeknownst to him as he focused on the game, there sat in a shadowy corner of a well-used drawer a simple, unadorned silver key chain and a small, fluffy black cat toy.

* * *

Later that night, Adrien holed himself up in his hotel room and pulled up the video Alya had sent him, trying not to get too frustrated. He failed. So far, the only thing he’d learned was that Ladybug wasn’t Marinette, and the only lead he had left was this random video footage. He seriously doubted that Alya thought he was actually going to find Ladybug, but at least she was humoring him. He was starting to doubt that he would actually find Ladybug this way, too. If he wanted to find her, he was going to have to do something only Chat Noir would be able to do.

But he’d figure that out later.

The video was long, but Adrien resolved to watch it all the way through, ignoring the pang as the video focused on Ladybug, already in the roped off section in front of city hall, standing politely next to Mayor Bourgeois with her hands clasped behind her back. 

Alya’s voice sounded in the background as the camera panned from side to side, showing the crowd and newscasters gathered there. _“Hey there, bugheads! This is Alya, coming to you live from City Hall! Mayor Bourgeois is about to hold a ceremony in honor of Ladybug and Chat Noir. Only Ladybug is here today, but we’re really excited about this. Right Marinette?”_

The camera panned to the side and focused on Marinette, who was standing beside Alya. She shot the camera a smile and a quick thumbs up before returning her attention back up front. 

Oh. So that was what Alya meant when she said she edited the video out of respect to Marinette. It must be weird to see video of yourself doing things you don’t remember doing. 

__“I wonder if I can get Ladybug to look over here. Yo, Ladybug!”_ _

_“Alya!”_ The Marinette in the video hissed, and the camera bounced a little, going out of focus. _“The ceremony is about to start! Don’t distract her!”_

The camera refocused as Alya called for Ladybug again, Marinette groaning in the background. Ladybug herself stood serenely up front, gazing slightly upward as if lost in her own thoughts. Adrien wondered what she had been thinking about. Was she wishing he were there with her? 

He didn’t deserve to wish that. It was his own fault he wasn’t there with her. 

Alya was pouting, unsuccessful at getting the superheroine’s attention. Marinette tried to console her. _“The crowd’s really loud, she probably can’t hear you…”_

Well. If he’d harbored any last ideas (hopes?) that Marinette was Ladybug, then they were now officially debunked. 

Adrien propped his chin on his hand and watched as the Mayor started the event, giving a short but pleasant speech about how grateful Paris was to their heroes for protecting them from Hawkmoth for so long. It was, frankly, quite boring, and as the video dragged on Adrien found himself watching Ladybug carefully. She was standing poised in the same spot as before, and every so often her lips would quirk upwards or she would tilt her head modestly. 

Every so often, Alya or Marinette would say something quietly to the camera, and Adrien’s thoughts turned towards Marinette. What had she been doing with that map? It was possible that it was just something random that she hadn’t bothered to write down, but… it was a seriously intricate maze of markups. And now they might never know what it meant. Would Marinette be okay with that? How long did she spend poring over it, trying to figure out the connections, trying to get it to tell her its secrets? 

For maybe the first time that day, Adrien wondered if he should maybe be concerned about his friend. Was it healthy for her to be worrying over things that happened two years ago? After all, it wasn’t realistic to expect her to know everything that had ever happened to her. It had been two years. If she was going to figure it out, would she have done that by now? 

_You’re one to talk,_ said a sarcastic voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Plagg. 

_This is different,_ he insisted in his head to Imaginary Plagg. _I will find Ladybug._

What was it like for her, those last few weeks being Ladybug without a Chat Noir? Was she lonely? Did she already know that she was going to disappear from the public eye? Did she still patrol? Was she still patrolling now, two years later? 

Adrien sat up in his chair suddenly. What if she was? He knew where she patrolled - or, at least, where they used to patrol. What if she still did their old routes through the city, creeping across rooftops solo so that she wouldn’t be seen, watching for trouble? 

As quickly as the hope flared, it died down again. Normal, civilian crime was still a thing, he reasoned. If Ladybug was content to let the police handle that, then there wasn’t a reason for her to patrol anymore, unless she just liked being in the suit. Adrien flexed his right hand, as empty as it had been for two years. That was something he could relate to. 

Mayor Bourgeois had just finished speaking, and now Ladybug was stepping up to the podium. Eighteen-year-old Adrien had listened to her raptly, barely keeping it together as he watched his partner on the screen. Twenty-year-old Adrien didn’t do much better, though he was significantly at less risk of bursting into tears at the sight of Ladybug alone at the podium. 

_“People of Paris,”_ Ladybug said, pausing to take a breath. _“Five years ago I promised you that Chat Noir and I would keep you safe, and I like to think that we have kept that promise._

_"While it is a joy to know that I have touched so many of your hearts, I want you to know that you all are an inspiration to me, every day. Every day, I see people helping each other. Protecting each other. I see the love you have for your city, and for your community, in the things you teach, the things you do, the things you create. Many of our people have risen up and gone above and beyond what was expected of them, and Chat Noir and I couldn’t have done it without you._

_"So please. Continue to help each other. Continue to protect those you love. The world changes, and people change, but if we keep doing what is right, those changes can be for the better. Someday, I hope to see you in a better world, a place where we can be ourselves, expose our true feelings without fear. If that day comes…”_

Adrien held his breath as Ladybug looked up to the sky. Or rather… up to the rooftops. 

_“If that day comes, I’ll meet you where we always have, in a world different than we’ve ever known.”_

There was a beat of silence as the crowd drank in her short but sweet speech, then they started to holler and clap. Alya’s voice started up again, but Adrien wasn’t listening anymore. 

Ladybug was smart. Ladybug was the smartest person he knew. If she didn’t want to be found, she wasn’t going to be found. 

_If that day comes, I’ll meet you where we always have, in a world different than we’ve ever known._

But if she wanted anyone to find her, it would be him. 

_A place where we can be ourselves, expose our true feelings without fear._

On the video screen, Mayor Bourgeois stepped forward and shook Ladybug’s hand, clasping her tiny one in both of his own. With a smile and a wave, Ladybug threw her yoyo and was gone before Alya’s camera could follow her into the rooftops. 

_I’ll meet you where we always have._

What was he waiting for? It was almost midnight, but that had never stopped him before. Adrien shot to his feet, and scrambled to put on a jacket. He was halfway to the door when he paused, then walked over to the bedside table, picking up the fortune he’d gotten in his cookie yesterday. 

_It’s okay to look at the past and the future. Just don’t stare._

After a long pause, Adrien slipped it into his pocket, bringing it with him as he left the hotel. This was his last play. If he was wrong, and nothing was waiting for him… 

He’d have to make peace with the fact that that particular future wasn’t there for him anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, two plus two is not equaling four here…. Raise your hand if you’re confused! *cackles and rubs hands gleefully*
> 
> Next up: Marinette’s POV from two years ago! Let’s find out what the heck is going on.
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated! Let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have little to no knowledge on how police procedures or a high-profile trial would happen in France. I mostly made up what sounded reasonable to my American mind, so bear with me.
> 
> CW: Mentions of throwing up/dry heaving.

—2 years earlier—

Ladybug collapsed to her knees in the cramped alley, watching the sirens and lights blur past. Her head throbbed and her body ached, and she rubbed her side, where only a few minutes before had been an incessant, stabbing pain. She never wanted to move again.

Boots thumped on the ground and Chat Noir sank to his knees beside her.

“We did it,” Ladybug murmured, torn between relief, horror, and an utter, bone-crushing exhaustion. “We finally did it.”

When Chat Noir didn’t answer, Ladybug looked up at him, his sharp profile outlined by the flickering lights of the lit city, unusually busy for this time of night. He was staring off into space, and for the first time in almost five years, Ladybug had no idea what he was thinking.

She had no idea what she was thinking, either.

Gabriel Agreste—reclusive celebrity, fashion idol, and Hawkmoth. The man who’d terrorized Paris, who possessed innocent people and made them do awful things, all so he could make a wish. So he could wish his wife back.

Oh God. Adrien. 

“Adrien is going to be devastated,” Ladybug whispered.

Chat Noir turned to look at her, and then they were hugging each other, holding on so tight that Ladybug wasn’t sure who was supporting whom.

“Pound it,” they said together.

It was a huge victory. The supervillain they’d been fighting—their archenemy—had finally been defeated. Justice was being served. Paris was safe now, for real.

Ladybug took a shuddering breath, and she realized that Chat was shaking in her arms. “Oh, kitty,” she said, rubbing small circles into his back.

“Ladybug,” Chat Noir whispered hoarsely. “What now?”

She didn’t know. She needed to talk to the police. Get the butterfly and peacock miraculouses back. Talk to the press. Talk to Adrien. 

Then what?

Her miraculous beeped, closely followed by Chat’s and he let out what she thought might be a choked sob, but it was hard to tell. “Milady, I-I can’t.” His voice broke, and Ladybug squeezed him tighter, trying to find the words to tell him that it was going to be okay.

Everything was going to be okay now.

But Chat Noir pushed away from her, and the empty space in her arms matched the cold hollowness in her chest.

“Chat?” Ladybug asked shakily.

“I just can’t. Not right now.” Chat backed a few steps away from her. “I’m sorry.”

“Chat, what are you talking about?” Ladybug moved toward him, reaching for his hand. “It’s over. We don’t have to—”

“I can’t be Chat Noir right now.”

His voice stopped Ladybug in her tracks, her brain not quite processing as he turned away and stooped into a crouch in the shadows of the alley.

“Claws in.”

“No-what? Chat!”

Ladybug lunged forward to catch him, but he was already gone, disappearing into the celebrating crowd on the street, the caution tape and police cars and ambulances. The black ring, almost invisible on the shadowed cobblestones. Her partner, gone.

* * *

Ladybug pretended everything was alright. She talked to the police, pretending she wasn’t dead on her feet. She talked to the press, pretending not to notice when they asked about Chat Noir. The night dragged on forever, and yet, only seemed to last a few seconds. When she finally returned home, she collapsed into her bed and simply laid there until the sun finally made its appearance.

They say everything looks better and brighter in the morning. Marinette didn’t believe that anymore.

But Ladybug was strong, even when Marinette couldn’t be. She took to the roof as soon as it was light enough, going back to the scene of the crime, hoping against hope that maybe she’d find him there. That he’d take the ring back.

He wasn’t. And Ladybug was a fool for wishing it.

She was so distracted as she walked around the roped off area, not quite ready to venture inside it yet and avoiding the police officers on duty, that she almost didn’t notice when someone bumped into her. A figure in a dark sweatshirt, face obscured. 

They were gone before Ladybug could even utter an apology, the only indication they were ever there was the envelope on the ground, shaken loose by the collision. 

An envelope with Ladybug’s name on it in a fancy script.

Ladybug’s heart jumped into her throat, and she quickly scooped it up from the ground. Could it be…?

Trying not to get her hopes up, Ladybug practically tore the envelope open, flattening out the paper inside so she could read it.

As her eyes scanned the short message once, twice, three times, her blood turned to ice in her veins.

This was not from Chat Noir.

* * *

Marinette’s hand shook as she held the paper, trying so hard to keep herself from crumpling it in her fist and setting it on fire. Or using the Black Cat miraculous to cataclysm it to dust. Or-

“You need to calm down, Marinette, and look at this with a clear head.”

Marinette took a deep breath, but she didn’t feel any calmer. Her free hand ran through her hair and clutched at it as she paced back and forth in the confines of her room. “This is the third note, Tikki! I don’t think we can just ignore them anymore!” She tossed the paper onto her desk, where the other two lay, and sank to the floor, leaning against her chaise and burying her head in her hands.

Tikki sank to sit on her head, patting it gently.

“I miss Chat Noir,” Marinette said quietly, almost to herself.

It slipped out before she could really think about it, but it was true. She missed him. And she couldn’t help but think that if he were still here, if he were still Chat Noir, this god-awful nightmare wouldn’t be happening.

_The cat’s out of the bag, Ladybug. Or should I say… mouse? I’m sure Mylene Haprele would agree, though she sure won’t be happy about it._

She thought her supervillain-related problems were going to be over with the defeat of Hawkmoth. Oh, how wrong she had been. So naive. What had Master Fu been thinking, making her Guardian all those years ago? “I’m so sorry, Tikki. I’m a terrible Guardian.”

Tikki immediately jumped to assure her that she was no such thing, and that she’d find a way to fix it. Marinette simply listened. She didn’t argue, but she couldn’t find the heart in her to agree, either. 

_I should be thanking you, really. It was a long, hard road, but without you, I wouldn’t be where I am now. And what a wonderful place it is. Too bad you won’t be around long enough to see it. That is, unless you’re willing to bargain. Because it’s possible I could be encouraged to strike you a deal._

It was obvious that this was all her fault. She didn’t know who this person was or how much information they had, but it was clear that the identities of Paris’ superheroes were compromised. Thanks to her.

“Okay, Marinette, I see why you’re panicking, but you have to remember that it’s possible they don’t know anything.”

Marinette lifted her head, making Tikki leave her hair to settle on her knee instead. “How can you say that, Tikki? Of course they know something! They _told_ me that Mylene is Petit Souris and that Aurore is Honey Bee. Who knows what else they know?”

“Marinette, please listen,” Tikki begged, looking up at her with wide, imploring indigo eyes before flying to her desk and dragging the three despicable notes over to her. “Just think about it for a second.”

_I want a miraculous, Ladybug. It’s only a matter of time until I get what I want. I always do. I suggest you make it easier on yourself and cooperate. Otherwise, I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands._

“There’s no ultimatum,” Marinette said slowly, rereading the fancy script. It was true. The notes were just that - notes. Words on a page, empty threats. “They’re trying to scare me.” She decided not to mention that it had worked.

“See?” Tikki said. “They’re just bluffing. They’re trying to get you to mess up and reveal yourself.”

Marinette frowned. “I don’t know if that’s a risk I’m willing to take, Tikki. If I call their bluff… This is my identity on the line, and the identities of all the other heroes. All the miraculouses! If we don’t do anything...”

“We’ll figure it out, Marinette. I promise.”

Marinette stared hopelessly at the paper scattered on the ground. No matter what this person really wanted, the notes were working. Trying to find them could put her identity, and everyone else’s, at risk. 

_I don’t know who you are yet, Ladybug, but I’m getting close. You keep unmasking your allies, after all. It’s only a matter of time before you unmask yourself._

But she was terrified of what would happen if she didn’t take this seriously.

_I’m getting close, Ladybug. Do yourself a favor and watch your back. Not that it will make much of a difference, in the end._

* * *

The first time Marinette had seen Adrien after his dad’s arrest had been as Ladybug, the day after the fact. Shoving that first intimidating message to the back of her mind, she’d first talked to the police about the confiscated miraculous. They had given her the Peacock, but they had insisted on keeping the Butterfly miraculous for now, promising to return it to her after the trial. Ladybug had spent most of the day helping Amelie Graham de Vanilly track down Adrien, even going so far as to call Chloé in New York to see if she had any idea as to where he could be. Ladybug was glad she had, because she found Adrien in the first place Chloé suggested, her old room at the Grand Paris Hotel.

Ladybug’s stomach had been a twisted knot of emotions, even though she’d have thought she’d been maxed out. Relief over finally defeating Hawkmoth, and regret over who he’d turned out to be. Guilt for tearing Adrien’s life apart. Heartbreak over losing Chat Noir.

Her long-time crush seemed so silly, in comparison.

Adrien had the distinct look of someone who’d recently been crying, but he had wordlessly let Ladybug in when she had knocked hesitantly on the balcony window. He’d listened quietly as Ladybug gave her condolences and her apologies. He’d even agreed to be taken back to his aunt and cousin, though Ladybug wasn’t sure how she’d managed that.

Ladybug could have sworn that for a moment, he had looked as if he was going to tell her something. That he was going to confide in her. But he didn’t, and they had sat together in heavy silence for a while. 

Maybe Ladybug had been imagining things. And maybe it was a selfish thing to think. But it felt like Adrien could somehow tell she was hurting too. Like they had been sitting together but apart, giving comfort in their presence, in their shared grief.

Or maybe it had just been an awkward silence to Adrien. Who was she to say?

Ladybug attended Hawkmoth and Mayura’s trial, barely two weeks after their arrest. There would doubtlessly be endless investigations later, but all of Paris just wanted these former supervillains behind bars. The trial was mostly a formality. It wasn’t like there was any doubt as to Hawkmoth and Mayura’s crimes or identities.

Ladybug spent most of the time wishing Chat Noir were there with her so she wouldn’t feel so alone. So Hawkmoth finally getting sent to jail would feel more like a victory. Instead, she testified against the defendants alone, on behalf of both herself and Chat Noir. She wasn’t sure if that was entirely legal, but if she had ever needed superhero privileges, it was now. She was not letting Chat Noir’s legacy be sullied by a criminal record for not showing up at court.

She had made eye contact with Adrien just once while she was up on the stand. Neither of them had smiled, but Adrien had given her a single nod from where he was seated, sandwiched protectively between Amelie and Félix.

Ladybug hoped that meant he didn’t blame her for ruining his life.

Mr. Agreste and Ms. Sancoeur pleaded guilty to all charges. As soon as they were sentenced, Adrien left with his aunt and cousin for the train station, leaving Ladybug to wonder if she would ever see him again. 

It wasn’t long before Ladybug was outside the courthouse, being swarmed with press and reporters and desperately wishing she had thought to take the roof instead of the front door. Hoping she could get away with not answering any questions, she made a beeline for the police car parked on the street, waiting for her. 

The driver’s door opened, and a tall, thin police officer emerged, rounding the front of the cruiser to shake Ladybug’s hand.

“Officer,” Ladybug greeted, shaking her hand and trying not to lurch forward into her as she was jostled from behind.

“Miss Ladybug,” the officer said, smiling. “What an honor. Thank you for your service to Paris.”

“It was my pleasure,” Ladybug returned politely. “Anything to keep Paris safe. Do you have it?” she asked, all too aware of the crowd pressing in around them, listening to their conversation.

“Yes, of course.” The officer handed Ladybug a sealed evidence bag and eyed the crowd around them, who was barely giving them space to breath. “It should be in there.”

“Thank you,” Ladybug said, relieved. She felt much better now that all the miraculouses were in her possession. She wanted to check that it was really in there, but the sheer amount of people surrounding her made that idea a little reckless, so instead she opened her yoyo and shoved the bag in there for safekeeping. “I’d better get going.”

“Of course,” The officer nodded, waving as Ladybug threw her yoyo and yanked herself out of the crowd.

She waited until she was in her room and transformed before she slit open the evidence bag and tilted the contents into her palm.

A small black brooch. A folded piece of paper.

Marientte’s heart was sinking even before she picked up the brooch. Somehow she knew, even without having to put it on, that this was not the Butterfly miraculous. 

Marinette’s head spun, and she realized she’d been holding her breath as she waited for the pin to change color, or for a small purple kwami to appear. 

Nothing happened. Somehow, she’d been tricked.

With shaking hands, Ladybug opened the note. The fourth one, written in the same frilly script as all the others, her name on the front. The shortest one yet.

_Looks like I didn’t need your help after all. See you soon, Ladybug. See you very, very soon._

* * *

Marinette awoke the next day with one grim certainty bouncing around in her head. She didn’t know how it had happened, or why. She didn’t know what she did wrong. She couldn’t fix it. The only thing left to do was damage control.

The simple truth was that she couldn’t be the Guardian or Ladybug if her identity was revealed to this new threat. She just couldn’t. The Miracle Box would have to be passed on, but she couldn’t trust herself to pick someone, not if this new supervillain was figuring out people’s identities because of her.

She’d give the Miracle Box to the Guardians’ Temple. They’d pick or send someone to be the new Guardian in Paris. She could recommend a couple of the old miraculous holders. Nino, maybe. He’d gotten better at keeping secrets, and he’d do well at that sort of thing. Same with Alya. Or Luka. Luka was very good at reading people, he’d be able to choose new heroes to protect Paris from this new threat.

If she played this right, she could stop any more damage from being done.

Tikki tried desperately to talk her out of it, but Marinette’s mind was made up. It didn’t matter whether the evidence bag had been switched on the street while Ladybug was holding it, or at the police station. The Butterfly and Peacock never should have been in anyone’s hands but hers or Chat Noir’s as soon as it had been yanked from the throats of the supervillains. This whole situation could have been avoided if she had just been a responsible guardian.

Yes, she’d lose her memories. If Chat Noir ever came back, she would never know. They might never be reunited. But if forgetting her secrets was the only way to keep them safe, it was worth it, to protect the city. 

Paris deserved a guardian that could keep them safe.

* * *

“Are you really sure this is what you want, Marinette?” Tikki asked unhappily, flitting around Marinette’s head as she made her final preparations. “If you really do this… there’s no going back.”

“I’m sure, Tikki.” Marinette said quietly, even though she’d assured the kwami multiple times over the past few weeks that yes, this was the right decision. She’d kept Paris safe for as long as she could. Now that she couldn’t, it was time to pass the mantle onto someone else.

Marinette glanced around her room. She’d gone through it multiple times already, getting rid of anything that might incriminate her or connect her to Ladybug. The only things left were a few random trinkets that only Chat Noir would be able to recognize. 

It was possible, after all, that even after she’d lost her memory someone would be able to make the connection between her and Ladybug, but she’d taken steps to prevent that. It hadn’t taken much convincing to get the Mayor to record the ceremony in her honor ahead of time because of “security risks''. They had played it as a hologram later, and Marinette had been sure to attend the event with Alya so that she was prominently shown on the Ladyblog as someone who couldn’t possibly be Ladybug.

Deciding that her room was as good as it was going to get, Marinette paced her room anxiously. Someone from the temple was going to show up any time now to take possession of the Miracle Box, and Marinette ran through her plan in her head, searching for anything she could have forgotten to do. “I’ve talked the the Guardians at the temple, I talked to Bunnyx, I remembered to plant the letter, I-”

“Marinette, calm down,” Tikki said. “It will be alright. You’ve thought of everything.”

Marinette sank down onto her chaise, the reality of what she was doing finally hitting her. She’d been caught up in a whirl of planning and preparing for the last few weeks, doing everything she possibly could to protect her identity even after her memory was gone, that it was only now that the full reality of what she was doing hit her. She knew how this worked. She’d forget everything about the miraculous. Master Fu had practically forgotten his entire life, it had been entrenched in magic for so long. It was likely Marinette wouldn’t remember anything from the time Stoneheart first smashed through the wall of her school.

“You’ll think it will be enough?” Marinette asked, worried. “This _has_ to work.” 

“And it will,” Tikki assured her. “Marinette, you’re the best Ladybug I’ve ever had. This plan will go off without a hitch.”

“That’s not true,” Marinette mumbled. “Just look at this disaster.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Marinette,” Tikki told her. “And even now, you’re doing your best to make it right. Your plan is foolproof. No one will suspect you’re Ladybug. Chat Noir will figure it out.”

Before Marinette could answer, there was a knock at her window. Marinette scrambled to her feet and opened it, allowing a small, thin man dressed in robes to climb gracefully through.

“Good afternoon, Ladybug,” the man greeted in a heavy accent, bowing. “I understand you wish to give up the guardianship?”

“Yes, Master,” Marinette said, bowing in return before taking the red spotted orb from her desk. “The Miracle Box is right here.”

“Are you aware of the consequences?” the man asked, taking it from Marinette’s arms.

“I swore to protect the miraculouses at all costs,” Marinette said seriously. “I’m just doing my duty.”

“I see.” The man inclined his head. “And… you wish to protect your identity with an illusion?”

“It’s best for everyone. No one will suspect who I am if Ladybug appears after my memories are gone.”

“That is very wise. I see why you were chosen, Ladybug.”

Marinette pressed her lips together. “I am no longer Ladybug, Master.”

The man peered at her carefully. “We will see.” Before Marinette could comment on that, he shifted the box in his hands and continued. “Just so I am clear on what you wish me to do: I will cast a confusion spell on you to make your story seem more believable, and then I will be gone from this room before you wake.”

Marinette nodded once. 

“In a few weeks, I or one of the other Guardians will return to Paris and use the Fox miraculous to fake a Ladybug sighting, steering suspicion of the new Butterfly away from you. Then we will send or assign a new Guardian to watch over Paris, taking into account your recommendations. Is this all still true?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Well then, I am ready whenever you are.”

Marinette turned to Tikki, unsure what to say. “Tikki…”

Tikki zipped up to her and nuzzled her cheek. “I meant what I said, Marinette. You’re the best Ladybug I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re the best kwami I could have ever asked for,” Marinette confessed. “You’ve done so much for me, that goes beyond just turning me into Ladybug. I never could have done it if you hadn’t believed in me.” She squeezed Tikki a little tighter, trying not to let the tears she could feel in the back of her throat spill out. “Thank you for everything.”

“Oh, Marinette.” Tikki sounded on the verge of tears too, though Marinette wasn’t sure if the tiny god could cry.

Marinette let her go, then pulled her necklace out from under her neckline, showing it to Tikki. “I may not remember you, but you changed my life, Tikki.”

Tikki just looked at her sadly with her big eyes as Marinette tucked the kwagatama back underneath her shirt. “Goodbye, Marinette.”

“Goodbye, Tikki.” With that one last farewell, Marinette pulled the earrings from her ears, and Tikki vanished.

Marinette handed her miraculous to the monk, knowing that the earrings were now leaving her hands for the last time. She’d never felt so alone, but there was no going back now.

The monk placed the earrings carefully in the Miracle Box. “You know what to do next?”

“Yes, Master.” Marinette glanced around her room one last time, taking in all the details. All the pictures of the friends she might not remember before the day was through. All the little trinkets that would lose their meaning as soon as Marinette said the word. Swallowing hard, Marinette reached into her pocket, making sure that the small, golden key was in there, where she would find it later. She would need it.

The monk reached one hand to a chair, ready to knock it over when she fell, just like they’d discussed.

“Okay. I’m ready.” Positioning herself in the center of the room, Marinette closed her eyes and took a deep breath, sending a final, quiet goodbye into the void. To Tikki. To her parents. To her friends. To Chat Noir.

“I, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, hereby relinquish the Miracle Box, and designate the Temple of Guardians to name the new Guardian!”

The kind gaze of the robed monk was the last thing she saw before she collapsed and darkness took over her vision.

* * *

Marinette woke up with a fuzzy head and a pounding headache, the world spinning around her. She stared confusedly up at the ceiling, blinking a few times. Why was everything blurry? 

After a few seconds, her vision came into focus, and she moved her head to the side, wincing as that small motion sent a stabbing pain through her skull. A pink chair nearby was sprawled on the ground next to her, as if knocked over suddenly. Had she fallen? Where was she?

Sitting up, she saw she was in a room. Her room? Marinette wasn’t sure, and the throbbing in her head was making it hard to think.

She struggled to her feet, using a nearby railing for balance. Her body felt strange. Her head spun, and the ground tilted, looking much too close and yet strangely far away. She needed to find someone to help her.

Somehow she managed to get herself down a nearby set of stairs without tripping, using two feet on each stair and clinging to the railing for dear life. It was only when she reached the bottom that she noticed the two middle-aged people in the kitchen, watching the news. They seemed familiar, but not quite. She couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Marinette?” The woman asked, glancing over at her. 

_Marinette._ Yes. That was her. This was her house. She lived here.

“Is everything okay?” the woman asked. Her mother. Sabine. “You look pale.”

“I-” What was wrong with her? Her brain felt like it was stuffed with cement and being pounded at with a jackhammer. “I think I hit my head.” 

Sabine rounded the counter, eyebrows pinching in concern, though she sounded a little resigned when she said, “Oh, Marinette. Come on, honey.” She led Marinette to the bathroom and started rummaging around a cabinet. “Here.” She placed two tablets in her hand and an ice pack. “That should help. Are you still going out tonight with Alya?”

Marinette obediently took the medicine, but held the ice pack loosely in one hand, not sure where to place it. Her entire head was pounding. “Alya?” she asked hesitantly.

Sabine frowned, turning on the bathroom light, then took hold of Marinette’s chin and tilted her head to the side, looking into her eyes carefully. Marinette flinched away from the light that was searing into her eyeballs. “What day is it, sweetheart?”

“Um…” Marinette knew that it should be an easy question, but her mind kept drawing a blank. Had she gone to school yesterday? Recently? Was it summer vacation? She sometimes lost track of the days on summer vacation.

The crease between Sabine’s eyebrows deepened. “Do you have a headache?”

This, Marinette knew. “Yes.”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

Marinette considered. “Nine.”

“Are you dizzy?”

“I was a minute ago.”

“How did you hit your head?”

“I…” Marinette racked her brain frantically, casting her eyes around the small bathroom as if something in it would help her remember. Her eyes landed on the mirror, and she looked at herself clearly for the first time.

Pale face. Wide blue eyes. But she didn’t recognize the stranger staring back at her.

Marinette collapsed to her knees and bent over the toilet as her stomach lurched. As she gagged over the bowl, cool hands slipped at her neck and held her hair back. 

Sabine rubbed careful, comforting circles into Marinette’s back. “Tom!” she called, voice echoing against the bathroom tiles and registering distantly through the ringing in Marinette’s ears. “We need to call a doctor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that’s the why and how of Marinette giving up the Guardianship. Stay tuned, though, because Marinette still has a few tricks up her sleeve!
> 
> I loved reading all of your comments speculating on how Marinette managed to be in two places at once. Most of them probably would have worked, but no one got the hologram one right. Based on that one scene from Guitar Villain, I figured that they have the technology to do that and manage to fool everyone. If you guessed that the last Ladybug sighting was an illusion, then congrats!
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated! Let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

It took a lot of grunt work and liberal use of fire escapes, but Adrien finally hauled himself up to the top of the building without falling and breaking his neck. Crouching behind a chimney, he waited with bated breath, hoping that no one had glanced out their window and seen him climbing up to the roof. He was pretty sure this was illegal. The entire ordeal would have been so much easier if he had Plagg.

After a minute he decided that the silence meant that he hadn’t been seen, so he stood up and crept to the edge of the roof, looking out over the street. Paris was dark and quiet, lit only by streetlamps and the occasional light in the window. He remembered the days when he had seen Paris from this height on a daily basis, though most of the time he hadn’t stopped to appreciate it.

It was a good way to put things into perspective.

This particular rooftop wasn’t particularly special. To most people, there was no reason why a superhero would hide anything up here. But Adrien knew that he and Ladybug had often met here for patrol, liking the fact that from this particular rooftop it was nearly impossible to see them from the street. There were other spots they would meet up too—The Eiffel Tower, Trocadero Square, and Notre Dame had been some of their favorites. But Ladybug knew that Adrien didn’t have a miraculous anymore. She wouldn’t have left something that was impossible for him to get to.

If Ladybug had left something for him, it would be here.

Turning away from the view of Paris, Adrien ran his hands over the chimneys and along the sides of the roof, looking and feeling for something, anything. It wasn’t until he dropped to his hands and knees and ran his hand underneath the ledge of the railing that Adrien felt it—a flat sheet of plastic, different from the cool metal that surrounded it.

Heart pounding, Adrien worked his fingers under it and gently pulled it, working at it. It took a while—it was really stuck on there—but eventually it came loose in his hands with a small pop.

Adrien sat back on his heels and turned it over carefully in his hands, brushing off the dust and debris and cobwebs, which probably meant it had been sitting there for a while. It was small and flat, the size of an envelope, and wrapped in what felt like a kilo of plastic and tape, probably to seal it from the elements and make sure it didn’t come loose before he found it.

If it was even what he thought it was.

Hands shaking, it took Adrien a while to pry loose all of the tape and unwind the plastic. Eventually, all he was left with was a thin pink envelope. Adrien scrambled over to the other side of the roof, but the streetlamps lighting the street below didn’t extend their glow to the gloom of the rooftops. It was something Adrien had been grateful for during his time as Chat Noir, but now he cursed lightly and pulled out his phone to open the flashlight app, sitting with his back against the chimney and working open the envelope with one hand so he could read the letter inside.

* * *

_Chat Noir—_

_By the time you read this, I’ll be long gone. Hell, you might never read this. But even if I don’t understand why you left, or where you are, you deserve to know what happened to me._

_I can’t tell you everything, because there’s too much of a risk that you won’t be the one to find this letter. But that’s fine, because I’m sure you already know the most important parts._

_I made too many mistakes. I know that what’s important is that I fix them, and everyone always trusts me to do that. But this one is too big for me. I can no longer be the person who fixes everything. Being both Ladybug and the Guardian was too much. One of them was going to make me slip up eventually. I’m not the right person for this job anymore. If Paris needs a Ladybug, they’ll get one. But it won’t be me. From this point forward, the Guardian of the Miraculous is a previous miraculous holder._

_It hurt when you left, Chat, I’m not going to lie. But if whatever you were going through is anything like what I’m going through… then maybe I do understand why you gave up your miraculous. Even if I don’t understand why you left me._

_But honestly, it doesn’t matter if I understand or not, because I’ve made my decision, and that means that I’m never going to see you again. We were the Bug and Cat team. We were supposed to be Ladybug and Chat Noir until the very end. You and me against the world._

_I guess the good old days are over, my kitty._

_So, thank you. Thank you for always being by my side. Thank you for all the hits you took, the grumpy or snappy or weepy bugs you put up with. Thank you for your patience, your kindness, your dumb puns._

_The truth is, I always loved you, Chaton. Maybe not the way you loved me. But I did. I still do, even though you’re not here for me to tell you anymore. Even if I’m not there by your side to say it._

_I know what you’re thinking, but trust me. I imagine that you’ll have about as much luck finding me as I did finding you. You’d have to hop back in time._

_I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be mean. And I don’t want you to feel guilty about this, because none of it was your fault. It was mine. But I can’t be Ladybug without Chat Noir._

_I’m not even going to sign this letter, because you know who it’s from already. Besides, I’m no longer Ladybug. But I will always and forever be — your Lady._

* * *

A drop of water hit the end of the page, and it took Adrien a few seconds to realize that he was crying. He held the paper away from him, not wanting to make the ink run, blinking furiously. It was no use, though. Tears leaked from his eyes, blurring his vision as he let out a strangled sob.

Ladybug was gone. She’d given up her miraculous, just like him. 

What had made her do it? What mistake—or mistakes—could have possibly possessed her to do it? 

_I can’t be Ladybug without Chat Noir._

Adrien pressed a fist to his mouth to cover up another strangled noise. Had leaving hurt her that much? Oh God, this was all his fault. He should have been there for her. That was his _job,_ to be there for her. To make sure that Ladybug didn’t have to shoulder this kind of burden alone. 

He’d thought it was all over, that day he’d taken off the ring and fled. He’d thought that they’d defeated Hawkmoth, so Paris didn’t need him any more. That it was okay for him to leave. But it wasn’t. There was something else, something that Ladybug didn’t think she could handle alone. And now she was miraculous-less, like him. Guarding the Miracle Box and waiting for the day she’d have to choose a new Ladybug. 

Adrien had so many questions, but now wasn’t the time. Now, he curled up against the cool clay of the chimney behind him and cried for the woman he loved. The woman he would always love. The woman he would never see again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short and—well, I don’t think I can say sweet. *Runs away from the mob that’s probably after me right now.*
> 
> This was the original ending of this fic when I first got the idea. Ladybug disappears, forced to cover up her identity and is unable to tell Chat who she is without risking the new Butterfly holder from finding out as well. If you want to stop here, go right ahead, but I am planning one more chapter.
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated! Let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? Angst? Fluff? Who knows? Last chapter! Hope y’all enjoy.

Heavy rain pounded mercilessly against the roof and ran down the windows, perfect weather for brooding. Wind shook tree branches outside, making them creak, and every so often thunder would boom, lighting up the inside of Marinette’s room briefly before fading, being replaced once again by the warm lamplight.

Adrien himself was curled up on Marinette’s chaise, even though it was much too small for him to be lying on, face buried in a soft pink pillow and clutching at the Ladybug and Chat Noir dolls Marinette had made so long ago. They were worn, fabric fading and fraying in some places, though they were still in very good condition. Adrien wondered how many kids had played with them, and how many times Marinette had fixed them over the years. They were obviously quite well loved.

When he’d wordlessly knocked on Marinette’s door, she hadn’t hesitated before letting him in. He didn’t know what it was—the look on his face, maybe, or the sadness in his eyes—but Marinette hadn’t said a word as she’d led him up to her room and gestured to her chaise, even when he’d scooped up the superhero dolls before sinking into the proffered piece of furniture.

He’d spent the last few days at his hotel in a never ending cycle of rereading Ladybug’s letter and wanting to cry, to frantic pacing as he tried to figure out what to do, to desperate anger as he debated just throwing the letter away. He never did, though. Even now, the letter was still with him, burning a hole in his pocket. Trapped in a fog of being lonely, yet wanting to be alone, he’d finally found his way back to the bakery. To someone who knew what it was like to lose something you could never get back. 

Marinette, seeming to sense that he just needed some company, had filled her room with soft, comforting chatter. She’d told him about the project she was working on. She’d told him about how she’d been working at the bakery and living with her parents since she’d lost her memory so she could get back on her feet. She wanted to apply to a fashion school soon and move out. Get an internship, maybe. 

It seemed to lessen the ache in Adrien’s chest, to know that one of his friends had also lost everything, and yet was working through it. Was still as kind and strong as she ever was. She, too, had been forced to pause her life for a while, and that knowledge filled him up, calmed his jittery nerves and his grieving heart.

Marinette had brought up some leftover pastries a while ago, but Adrien hadn’t touched them. He didn’t feel like eating. Marinette didn’t press it, though every so often she would shoot him a worried glance from where she was quietly sewing at her desk.

So Adrien passed the day in Marinette’s quiet company, in a haze of thoughts and warmth and kindness and misery that blended seamlessly into the approaching evening. 

Thunder boomed at the same time Marinette swiveled her chair towards him to say something, and Adrien had to blink himself back to the real world before asking, “What was that?”

“I said, do you want to talk about it? I mean, I don’t want to pry, but you look like you haven’t slept since I last saw you.”

Adrien’s hand tightened ever so slightly around the Ladybug doll. He had slept, but not well.

Marinette’s brow pinched in concern when he didn’t answer. “I mean, you don’t have to. We can talk about it—or not. Whatever you want.”

“I don’t—” Adrien cleared his throat and shook his head, though he really wanted to take Marinette up on her offer. He was so damn tired of being alone. But he couldn’t. He could never tell her or anyone else any of this. This was something he was going to have to take to his grave.

“Okay,” Marinette said. “But if… if something happened, and you need me… don’t hesitate to ask for help. I’ll be there. No questions asked.”

She was already turning back to her work when Adrien asked, “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“How do you know exactly what to say?”

Marinette shrugged. “I mean it. My friends and family were all there for me when I was going through it. You deserve to have someone in your corner, too.” She picked up her project again and started messing with the pins. “Don’t look so surprised,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “It’s the same offer you made me. Thanks again for that, by the way.”

That’s right. He had offered to help. To talk to her. “No problem.”

“No, seriously. I didn’t really expect you to take me as seriously as you did. It means a lot. And, speaking of, I actually have something to show you another time.”

Adrien propped himself up on his elbows, suddenly interested. “Why not show me now?”

Marinette glanced over, plucking a few pins out of a nearby pin cushion. “Are you sure you want to do that now?”

“Why not? I need a distraction anyway.”

Marinette gave him a searching look, hands pausing where they were folding the fabric. Hesitating. Probably because she didn’t want to hijack his moping time with her problems. Adrien held her gaze, trying to show her that he was serious. He doesn’t mind being there for her to talk to. If he can’t talk about his problems, he’s okay talking about hers. Who knows? It might make him feel less alone. More productive. Less miserable.

Marinette cracked. “Okay.” She rolled her chair over to her drawer and pulled out a notebook. From inside it, she took out a folded paper with a red seal, one that had already been opened. “So, I kind of… left something out when we talked last time. Something big.”

Adrien sat up all the way, making space for Marinette to come sit next to him on the chaise. Close up, he could see that the creases of the paper were worn and soft, as if Marinette had opened and closed it many times before. “Okay,” he said, willing her to continue.

“The thing is… there’s another reason I think something weird was going on with me before I lost my memory.” She handed Adrien the paper, and he took it gingerly, unfolding it to see a letter, written in a fancy, almost old-fashioned script.

“There’s no signature,” he said, surprised.

“Yeah, it’s…” Marinette hissed out a breath, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. “Well, read it first.”

With one last glance at Marinette, Adrien turned back to the letter and read—

_Experiencing loss is a part of life. Some people lose their first love. Some lose the harmony in their relationship. Some people lose hope, others lose patience, while others lose their soul. Some lose their certainties, and some have nothing to lose._

_Experiencing loss is a part of life. But good things come, too. Expect the unexpected, and embrace it. And who knows how far these adventures will lead you. You find people to whom you entrust your heart as much as they entrust theirs to you. That trust is sometimes broken, but it can always be restored._

_Yes, sometimes the road can be winding. You might even get lost along the way. But with the help from the right people, you’ll always find your destination. As we grow old, we realize life doesn’t always give us all the gifts we hoped it would._

_I would have loved to tell you all this in person, Marinette, but if you’re reading this, it means I’ve already lost my memory. But you mustn’t be scared, and you mustn’t be sad. As I was telling you at the beginning of this letter, experiencing loss is a part of life, but it doesn’t define it. Because what really matters isn’t whether you win or lose. It’s the ability to accept changes in ourselves. It’s accepting that even if life doesn’t always give us the gifts we were hoping for, the real gift is life itself._

“I’ve been so confused by this letter,” Marinette was saying, seeing that he’d finished reading, and Adrien had to struggle to listen to her over the roaring in his ears. “I mean, it’s mostly just advice but why isn’t it signed? For a while I thought it might be from me, you know, like a letter to my future self, because it isn’t signed and I don’t know anyone else who has amnesia, but the handwriting doesn’t match, so…” she shrugged. “Also, I don’t know how I could have predicted that I would lose my memory.”

Adrien swallowed hard. He might have an idea.

“So then I thought that maybe it was from a relative or someone who had Alzheimer’s disease, or maybe dementia. I mean, they would know that they were losing their memory, right?”

It could be disease… or magic.

Ladybug’s letter, what had it said? That the Guardian would be a previous miraculous holder? Adrien had taken that to mean that Ladybug herself no longer held a miraculous, but maybe he’d read that wrong. Maybe what it really meant was that Ladybug was no longer the guardian, period.

Maybe she’d meant that she was literally giving the Miracle Box to a previous miraculous holder… like Marinette.

“-but I’ve looked, and I don’t think I know anyone with any sort of disease like that-”

Marinette was a good choice for Guardian. Responsible, clever, trustworthy. She couldn’t make excuses to save her life, but she could keep a secret, and she could problem-solve with the best of them.

But something went wrong. Marinette was obviously no longer the Guardian, if her amnesia was anything to go by. But what had happened? Who was the Guardian now?

Marinette was still talking, but Adrien couldn’t listen. The reality of it had suddenly hit him hard in the gut, making it hard for him to breathe.

Ladybug was gone. She didn’t remember who she was. She didn’t remember him.

Why hadn’t she told him? Why not come out and say it? She’d gone to all the trouble of writing him a letter to explain everything and then was still keeping things from him?

_I can’t tell you everything, because there’s too much of a risk that you won’t be the one to find this letter._

Ladybug was always so careful. She hadn’t explicitly told him that she’d given up the Guardianship, but phrased it in a purposefully ambiguous way. She hadn’t explicitly told him to check their patrol spots, but had made it sound like just an obscure metaphor.

_A superhero never reveals her secrets._

Ladybug always had a plan, and she hadn’t led him astray so far.

Not noticing the way Marinette had suddenly fallen quiet, Adrien scrambled for his pocket, reaching for Ladybug’s letter. Distantly, as if from far away, he heard Marinette asking if something was wrong, but he didn’t answer, desperately scanning the letter, hoping that now that he was properly looking…

_You already know the most important parts._

“Adrien?” Marinette asked, inspecting his face.

Ladybug’s writing filled his head, their meanings being exposed like pushing back a curtain. Ladybug had never technically told him not to find her. Rather, she’d said...

_You’d have to hop back in time._

“You know, don’t you?” Marinette asked, inspecting his face. It wasn’t a question. “You know what the letter means.”

Adrien blinked at her, feeling a little foggy from this sudden chain of realizations. “I’m sorry,” he said, standing up. “I—I’ve got to go. I need to find— I’ll come back, I promise, and… I’m so sorry.” he backed up until he was by the trapdoor.

“What’s going on?” Marinette asked, face a mixture of confusion and concern, and Adrien could tell that she wouldn’t be fooled by any sort of excuse he could come up with. She’d seen his face as he’d read both letters.

“I have to go.” Adrien repeated. “But I’ll come back. As soon as I can. Please.”

As if Marinette could feel the desperation emanating from him, her face softened and she nodded.

That was all the permission Adrien needed before he fled, feeling like a jerk for ditching Marinette, but elation was lightening every step as he flung a prayer up to the sky. _Please, please, please let me be right…_

* * *

Adrien could see it now. A trail of clues that Ladybug had left him from across the bridge, on the other side of the metaphorical river. She’d trusted him to figure it out. She trusted him to find her, even when she couldn’t remember that she was even waiting for him.

Adrien wasn’t going to let her down again.

Out into the storm, rain soaking his clothes. Up the street, there, a metro station. Down the stairs, relying on rusty childhood memories to find the right train, crowding in among the people sheltering from the downpour. Bouncing his leg, checking his phone. Willing the train to move faster. He had to get there before they closed.

There, his stop. He was running again, sprinting up the stairs and down the street until he arrived at his destination, only slowing after a security guard shot him a strange look: The Louvre Museum.

Adrien wound his way through the halls until he finally reached the Egyption exhibit, practically vibrating with apprehension. Then followed more waiting, Adrien folding his arms and scowling at the tourists meandering through as if that would help them clear out faster.

After what felt like an eternity, there was a break in the flow of visitors, and Adrien was finally alone in the exhibit. Suddenly nervous, he approached the old column slowly, hesitating. Did he… did he touch it? Was there something hidden behind it? What was he supposed to do now? Was this even the right column? Memories weren’t entirely reliable, he knew, and it was likely they’d switched this exhibit around...

Before he could make a decision, a circle of white light appeared directly in front of him, and Adrien gaped as Bunnyx poked her head through. 

“Well, hey there.” She shot him a grin and ducked through the portal, stepping out into the museum. Adrien noted with no small amount of surprise that she was much shorter than he would have expected. The last time he’d seen her, three or so years before, adult Alix had come up to his chin, but now he stood head and shoulders above her. “Long time no see, am I right?”

Adrien blinked at her. “I didn’t think Ladybug wanted me to literally go back in time!”

Bunnyx laughed. “Don’t worry, she doesn’t. I’m just a messenger.” Reaching back into her burrow, she pulled out a package wrapped in paper and handed it to him. 

“Bunnyx…” Adrien said as he took it from her, starting to voice something that had been bothering him for a while. “The last few times we’ve met, you kept talking about… about me and Ladybug as adult superheroes, but…”

Bunnyx held out a hand to stop him before he could finish. “There are lots of timelines,” she explained kindly. “Your present isn’t set in stone, and your future never turns out the way you expect. You of all people would know,” A faint smile played across her lips. “You’ve still got a few surprises ahead of you, don’t you worry.”

Adrien glanced down at the package he was holding, knowing that that was as detailed of an answer as he was going to get. He couldn’t help but hope that Ladybug was one of those surprises.

“Well?” Bunnyx said. “We only have a few minutes before someone walks in here, and I gotta split before that happens.”

Barely sparing her a glance, Adrien tore open the paper and crumpled it up in one fist. He was now holding a pink, semicircle box, peppered with white dots. He started when he saw the pattern of the exterior, looking over at Bunnyx with wide eyes.

She just winked at him. “I was supposed to tell you where to go from here, but I think you know who that belongs to.”

He did. The pink with white dots, the unconventional shape. Every bit of it screamed “Marinette”. He tried to open the box, but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked. “Do I have to break it open?”

Bunnyx snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that.” 

She started to step back into the portal, but Adrien stopped her. “Wait, Bunnyx! How am I supposed to open it?”

“You already know how,” Bunnyx told him. “You have all the keys.” She stared at him expectantly.

Adrien scowled. “Your riddles are almost worse than Ladybug’s,” he muttered.

Bunnyx just laughed. “Where do you think I got it from?” With a smile and a salute, she disappeared into her burrow, the portal closing behind her.

Adrien huffed and held the box up to the light, inspecting it. The box wasn’t all that heavy, but it seemed to be built pretty sturdily. Besides the dots, there was a small keyhole, but not much else. Despite what Bunnyx had said, he definitely did not own the key to this box.

Tucking it under his arm, Adrien headed out, passing some other tourists on their way into the exhibit. Bunnyx had basically confirmed that the box belonged to Marinette. Did that mean that he was right? Ladybug had given Guardianship to Marinette?

Was if it was a dead end? What if Marinette was supposed to tell him where Ladybug was, but she didn’t remember? What if Ladybug’s plan failed?

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his brain, Adrien left the museum and headed back to the Dupain-Cheng’s.

* * *

Adrien bounced on the balls of his feet outside the apartment as he waited for Marinette to let him in. After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened.

“Adrien, you’re all wet!”

Was he? He had barely noticed. 

Marinette hustled him up to her room and immediately started rummaging around for some towels, tossing them to him. “Where did you go?” She asked as he patted down his clothes. Thanks to the existence of the metro, Adrien wasn’t actually all that wet. His clothes would dry off pretty quickly in the heat of Marinette’s bedroom.

“To find this.” Adrien set the box down on Marinette’s desk. “You’re supposed to open it, I think.”

Marinette blinked, looking between him and the box. “Um, what?”

“Can you open it?” Adrien asked. He said it pretty calmly, he thought, considering the circumstances.

“How the hell am I supposed to open it? I’ve never seen it before!”

“Look at it, Marinette.” he pointed to the top of the box. “Pink with white dots. I’m confident you designed it.”

“Lots of things are pink with white dots,” Marinette said, but she picked it up anyway and turned it over in her hands, inspecting it. “And I usually put my name or initials or flowers on things I designed.”

“I know, but—can you think of any way to open it?” Adrien pleaded, watching as she traced her finger around the keyhole. He didn’t want to put pressure on Marinette, but he didn’t know what he would do if he was wrong, and she couldn’t open the box.

Marinette set the box back down on the table, and Adrien’s heart sank. But then she reached back and unclasped her necklace—the gold key that she always had around her neck—holding it up to the light.

It didn’t look like a real key, and it was too small to really open anything—or so Adrien had thought when he first saw it, assuming that it was just a charm meant to look like an old-timey key. But Marinette, after a quick glance at Adrien, put it into the keyhole and twisted it sharply.

The box opened, revealing a pink notebook in the same shape as the box, with a dark strap holding it closed, an “M” embossed on the front.

Adrien reached out a hand to touch it, then pulled it back. “Is that…”

Marinette picked up the notebook, turning it over in her hands. “I think it’s my diary.” She looked up at Adrien. “Where on earth did you find this?”

Adrien opened his mouth to answer, then paused. What excuse could he possibly give would explain why he needed to know what was in her diary?

“Are you seriously not going to tell me?” Marinette asked, tone betraying her frustration.

“No! I mean, um, it’s a long story.”

If it were up to him, nothing in the way, he’d tell her in a heartbeat. But he wasn’t supposed to tell _anyone._

But why? Ladybug had obviously trusted her. Adrien trusted her. 

“Let’s hear it,” Marinette insisted. “What’s going on? What did that letter mean?” Her eyes narrowed at him. “I think I’ve been pretty patient, but you obviously know something I don’t.”

He had to tell her. Bunnyx had her diary. Her memory was erased, mostly likely by magic. She was involved in all of this, one way or another. She deserved to know what was going on.

Besides, if his theory was right, he’d probably end up explaining everything anyway. 

Adrien took a deep breath. “Okay. I guess I’ll start at the beginning.” He looked her right in the eyes. “I was Chat Noir.”

* * *

“Okay,” Marinette said after he had finished explaining, hesitating for a long pause. A _really_ long pause. Long enough to have Adrien fidgeting and wondering if he should say something or shut up. He’d already dumped enough information on her head. “Okay, let me get this straight. You were Chat Noir, but you’re not anymore, because you gave up your miraculous after you and Ladybug defeated Hawkmoth, and you came back to Paris to find Ladybug but she’s gone and you’re trying to find her, but for some reason you think she gave up her miraculous and gave all the miraculouses to _me_?”

Adrien let out a breath. She was taking this rather well, considering. Maybe it was because she didn’t really remember him as Adrien or Chat Noir. “Yeah, basically.”

“Why me?”

“She gave you a miraculous once,” Adrien said. “I couldn’t tell you before, because only Chat Noir knew, but you were Multimouse.”

“I—what?”

“It was awesome, but I can tell you about that later.”

“But—” Marinette shook her head. “Okay. Go on.”

“She told me in her letter that the Guardian was going to be a previous miraculous holder.”

“Yeah, but there were other miraculous holders, right? Why do you think I was in charge of all the other Miraculouses?” Marinette ran her fingers through her hair, agitated. “And if I was—where are they now? I wouldn’t remember what I did with them!”

“Well, it makes sense, right? You think you were hiding something from everyone—this could be it. And Ladybug left me your diary. I think that’s a pretty strong indicator. But most of all—” Adrien took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure how Marinette was going to react to this part. “When a Guardian gives up the Miracle Box, they lose their memory.”

Marinette stared at him. 

Adrien bit his lip. “They lose all their memories of the Miraculous,” he rushed to explain. “And you—you don’t remember high school. Hawkmoth appeared at the beginning of-”

Marinette held up a hand to stop him. Adrien fell silent, watching her carefully. Her face was impassive. Impossible to read.

Finally, Marinette turned and grabbed her diary. “I think we’d better read this.”

“Are—are you okay?”

Marinette let out a sharp breath, making her bangs flutter. “That remains to be seen. Any particular day?”

“What?”

“You think I might have known who Ladybug is, right? Any particular day?”

Adrien just shrugged, unsure what to say, so Marinette opened the diary to a random page and—after taking a deep breath— started to read out loud.

“Dear Diary—oh my God that’s so cheesy—I fell asleep in class today. Again. Alya thinks it’s hilarious to take pictures of people posing around me while I sleep—”

Adrien snorted a laugh, despite himself. He’d forgotten Alya used to do that. 

Marinette grinned and kept reading. “—and it’s not funny. Okay, it’s a little funny. But I wish it was easier to stay awake after all the late nights I’ve been having. The bac is coming up, and—” Marinette suddenly cut herself off, staring at the page with wide eyes. 

“What is it?” Adrien asked, wishing he could see what she was looking at. It was her diary though, no matter if she remember the things she wrote in it. She could choose what to share with him.

Marinette cleared her throat. “A-and between that and...and being Ladybug, it’s becoming—”

_“What?”_

Marinette handed him the notebook with shaking hands, and Adrien quickly scanned the page.

_Dear Diary—_

_I fell asleep in class today. Again. Alya thinks it’s hilarious to take pictures of people posing around me while I sleep, and it’s not funny._

_Okay, it’s a little funny. But I wish it was easier to stay awake after all the late nights I’ve been having. The bac is coming up, and between that and being Ladybug, it’s becoming almost impossible to focus in school._

_I can tell it’s affecting Chat Noir, too. He denies it, but he was totally yawning through patrol last night. At least until Lord Fancypants showed up. I’m serious, that was his actual name. He was upset at being teased at school, I think. It makes me so angry that Hawkmoth preys on children like that…_

The entry continued for a little bit, but Adrien was no longer reading. 

How? He had literal proof that Marinette and Ladybug were different people! And yet… it made sense. It had always made sense, but they couldn’t be the same person. Right?

“Oh my God, I was Ladybug,” Marinette whispered, as if to herself. “But that doesn’t make any sense! Ladybug disappeared _after_ I lost my memory!”

“What the hell happened?” Adrien frantically flipped through pages in the notebook, looking for the beginning of July. The day Hawkmoth was defeated.

“It fits,” Marinette said as Adrien flipped through the diary, phrases jumping out at him as he searched.

_Tikki thinks I should…_

_I talked to Adrien today without…_

_Chat Noir fell in the river after he…_

_...an awesome commission…_

“The sneaking out, the amnesia, everything! I was Ladybug!” Marinette ran her hands through her hair, clutching at the roots in a way that looked painful. “Oh my God. Oh. My. God.”

“But what happened?” Adrien muttered again, head spinning as he finally found it. The first few days of July were missing. Marinette—Ladybug—hadn’t written anything in almost a week, but the first entry in July was only a few days after he’d given up his miraculous. He scooted closer to Marinette so they could both see.

They read about Ladybug’s—Marinette’s—betrayal when he left her. They read about how crushed she’d been—on Adrien’s behalf—when she’d found out who Hawkmoth was. They read about her fear when she started finding the notes, the terror that her identity would be found out and it would be all her fault. They read about how much she missed Chat Noir. They read about her guilt when the Butterfly miraculous was stolen, right out from under her nose. And they read about her decision to give up being Ladybug and give up the Miracle Box, to someone who could keep Paris safe.

By the time they had neared the end of the diary, Adrien was shaking. Marinette hesitantly reached for his hand, but Adrien turned and flung his arms around her instead, burying his face in her shoulder. 

Marinette tensed at first, but relaxed almost instantly, rubbing his back lightly with a look of awe on her face. “Ladybug and Chat Noir,” she said quietly. “That was me and you.”

“I’m so sorry,” Adrien said, voice muffled by her shirt. “I should never have left you, that was terrible of me. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Hey,” Marinette shifted so her body was facing him, as if she wanted him to look at her, but Adrien held on tighter, not wanting her to see his face. To see how close he was to breaking down. “Adrien, what happened isn’t your fault.”

“I’m so sorry, I left and you didn’t even know why—”

“I know now.”

“—I never knew why you disappeared, I didn’t know you were going through all this—”

“I didn’t know you were going through all your stuff, either,” Marinette said gently, finally managing to dislodge him so she could look him in the eyes. He averted his gaze, so Marinette took his hands instead. “You needed to leave, Adrien. That’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“But if I’d stayed—”

“We don’t know what would have happened if you’d stayed, okay?”

Adrien didn’t respond, instead staring down at his lap. Maybe if he’d stayed, Ladybug wouldn’t have had to shoulder the weight of the world alone.

“I’m serious,” Marinette insisted. “Adrien, I need you to understand that. I _chose_ to have my memory erased. I obviously put a lot of thought into it. I really thought this was the best decision.”

Adrien sniffed, but didn’t argue. He still felt guilty, but she had a point. Besides, why was he allowing Marinette to comfort him, when it should be the other way around? Marinette had just found out that she was frickin’ _Ladybug_ and that she had erased her memory on _purpose_ because a supervillain was threatening her. “How are you taking this so well?” he asked. 

“I’m probably in shock,” Marinette said with a straight face. “I’ll start freaking out in a few minutes.” When Adrien didn’t smile, she shrugged. ”I always suspected there was more to my past life than I thought. This just… wasn’t what I was expecting.” She paused for a moment, fiddling absently with the ends of her long hair. “It’s different, knowing that I chose to have my memory erased. That I went into it knowing exactly what was going to happen, and I did it anyway, because it was for a bigger purpose.” She looked up and locked eyes with Adrien. “And that I had a chance to make sure you could find me.”

“I almost didn’t,” Adrien whispered, not breaking eye contact this time.

“But you did,” Marinette insisted, pulling him into another hug, tight and comforting. “Thank you.”

_It’s a lot weirder to write in a diary now that I know someone will be reading it later. But it’s okay. I trust Chat Noir with my life. It’s about time I trust him with my secrets, too._

_I don’t know what the future will hold. I can only hope that someday, Chat Noir will find this. That I will read these words again, even if I don’t remember writing them. I’m going into this with both eyes open, because it’s what is best. And I may be nervous, but I’m not afraid anymore. A month ago, I’d never thought I’d end up where I am now. Maybe that means that in the future, I won’t be where I think I’m going to end up._

_But that’s what life is all about, isn’t it? It wouldn’t be life if it wasn’t._

“I missed you,” Adrien said. Finally saying the words felt like sitting down to rest after a long, busy day, one that wore you out but you didn’t quite realize exactly how much until you took a moment to rest. “God, I missed you so much. You’re my best friend, you know. You mean more to me than Nino, or Chloe, or Kagami, or anyone ever did.” And maybe someday, when the time was right, he could tell her again that he loved her.

Marinette’s eyes shone with something Adrien couldn’t quite name. “I wish I could remember,” she said, voice suddenly choking up slightly with unshed tears. “Adrien and Chat Noir.”

Adrien squeezed her hand as she screwed her eyes shut tight, face twisting with sudden grief. “I wish you could, too. But it’s okay,” Adrien said, as much to himself as to her. “We have lots of time to make new memories. And I’m sure as hell not going to let you forget them this time.”

Marinette choked down a sudden laugh that sounded almost like a sob, covering her mouth. “Oh my God.”

“I’m serious! I mean, I leave for what, two years, and you go and get amnesia. What would you do without me?”

Marinette giggled weakly through the wetness in her eyes, but before either of them could say anything more, a sharp knock echoed through the room, startling them both.

Gripping each other’s hands tightly, they turned their heads towards the sound. Towards the rain streaked-window, and the shadow lurking just behind it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... CUT! Sorry not sorry!
> 
> First and foremost, many, many thanks to everyone who commented/enjoyed this! Your support means so much to me <3\. 
> 
> Ima be honest with y’all here. I have a bunch of great ideas of where I could take this, as well as places I purposely left wide open in case I wanted to continue this, but I don’t know if I will write it. Season 4 is starting to come out soon, and it’s almost certain that this won’t be canon-compliant anymore beyond Season 3, and I don’t know if I could get really excited about that, even though I have the idea for it. Especially because I have a bunch of other projects I’m super hyped about. Basically, it’s not out of the question that I continue this, but I’ll probably just leave it where it’s at, unless someone else wants to pick it up. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it! 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated! Let me know what you think!


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